According to Space .com, NASA scientists have discovered a” secret city” hidden beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet. A Nasa Gulfstream III plane with radar and radar to chart the depth of the ice, which was discovered in a scientific study in April 2024, revealed Camp Century’s long-forgotten remains. The US military base was constructed in the 1960s.
The center, which had been buried under layers of snow for years, was part of a top-secret Cold War initiative called Project Iceworm. The aim was to construct 2, 500 miles (4, 023 km ) of tunnels in Northern Greenland, where nuclear intermediate-range ballistic missiles ( IRBMs) could be hidden and launched at the Soviet Union. ” Camp Century emerges from the snow as we searched for its bed.” We did n’t know what it was at first”, said Chad Greene, a scientist at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory ( JPL). ” In the new information, specific buildings in the underground city are noticeable in a way that they’ve not been seen before”, he added.
Camp Century, constructed in 1959, consisted of caves carved into the frost strip, but it was abandoned in 1967 due to the high costs and the risk of the caves collapsing. The pictures that Nasa has presently taken show how strong Project Iceworm is still. Initial plans for the caverns had missile launches through the snow that would be difficult to pass through.
However, the melting snow plate now poses a new threat—dangerous treasures from the bottom, including weapons, gas, and other contaminants, may soon be exposed to the earth. In reaction, the US government acknowledged the dangers posed by climate change in a speech in 2017 and pledged to work with Danish and Greenland government to address the issue.
Scientists also warn that the continuous melting of Greenland’s ice sheet may have different implications. It is impossible to predict how the ice sheets will react to the quickly warming oceans and atmosphere, which would greatly limit our ability to predict sea level rise, according to Alex Gardner, a JPL professor.
For the time being, Camp Century serves as a reminder of the Cold War and a resource for professionals to research climate change’s effects on Earth’s ice plates. NASA intends to use the information collected from these studies to inform future research on the effects of warming temperatures.
