NASA shows off image of U.S. military's abandoned "city under the ice"

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As NASA idiosyncratic Chad Greene flew implicit bluish Greenland with a squad of engineers successful April, they ne'er expected their radar to find thing manmade buried heavy wrong the ice. Greene and his squad were flying supra the Greenland Ice Sheet connected a NASA Gulfstream III plane, scanning the barren expanse of crystal that's much than a mile heavy successful immoderate areas, erstwhile their radar instrumentality picked up thing unusual.

"We didn't cognize what it was astatine first," Greene said successful a statement released by NASA's Earth Observatory this week, on with caller images of the discovery. "We were looking for the furniture of the crystal and retired pops Camp Century."

It turns retired the squad had stumbled upon an abandoned Cold War-era subject basal built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers successful 1959. Nicknamed the "city nether the ice," the compound consists of a web of tunnels carved into the crystal sheet. It was abandoned successful 1967 and, implicit time, became buried astir 100 feet beneath the aboveground arsenic snowfall and crystal accumulated.

The basal was built arsenic portion of Project Iceworm, a then-secret program to experimentation with gathering a rocket motorboat tract nether the Greenland Ice Sheet during the Cold War, erstwhile hostility soared betwixt the U.S. and the then-Soviet Union. Camp Century, a remote, nuclear-powered installation, was built to survey the feasibility of specified a project, but it was ne'er realized and the basal was decommissioned nether the presumption it would beryllium buried everlastingly nether the ice.

While the "city nether the ice" had been picked up by erstwhile radar scans, the instruments utilized connected the NASA formation successful April provided a much detailed, if unexpected, survey.

"In the caller data, idiosyncratic structures successful the concealed metropolis are disposable successful a mode that they've ne'er been seen before," said Greene, who works with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Past scans had utilized a benignant of radar that points consecutive down astatine the crushed and produces a two-dimensional scan of structures buried beneath the ice. Greene's formation utilized NASA's Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar, which is capable to nutrient maps with "more dimensionality," according to the agency.

A photograph released by NASA connected Monday showed the features of the basal hidden heavy nether the ice, appearing arsenic anomalies adjacent the basal of the crystal sheet.

"Scientists person utilized maps acquired with accepted radar to corroborate estimates of Camp Century's extent — portion of an effort to estimate when melting and thinning of the crystal expanse could re-expose the camp and immoderate remaining biological, chemical, and radioactive discarded that was buried on with it," NASA's Earth Observatory said successful its nonfiction this week. "The technological inferior of the caller UAVSAR representation of Camp Century remains to beryllium seen; for now, it remains a caller curiosity acquired by chance."

A 2016 study of the abandoned basal suggested that the installation could nary longer beryllium considered "preserved for eternity," owed to clime alteration expanding the complaint astatine which Arctic crystal is melting.

CBS News' Walter Cronkite visited Camp Century for a circuit of the still-under-construction installation for a programme that aired successful 1961. The camp's commander, Captain Tom Evans, explained to him that the goals of the programme were three-fold: "The archetypal 1 is to trial retired the fig of promising caller concepts of polar construction. And the 2nd 1 is to supply a truly applicable tract trial of this caller atomic plant. And, finally, we're gathering Camp Century to supply a bully base, here, successful the interior of Greenland, wherever the scientists tin transportation connected their R&D activities."

The nonstop quality of that probe and improvement enactment wasn't discussed successful Cronkite's study for the CBS documentary amusement "The Twentieth Century." (An abridged mentation of that study tin beryllium viewed astatine the nexus above.)

Speaking with 60 Minutes successful 2016, arsenic that amusement revisited Cronkite's decades-old travel to Camp Century, shaper Daniel Ruetenik said the travel was fascinating, and helium marveled astatine the improvement of quality involvement successful the vast, frozen expanse of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

"At the clip [of Camp Century], the Cold War was considered to beryllium the top menace to humanity," Ruetenik said. "And now, the country has go a destination for clime scientists trying to survey changes successful the environment. So, it has a 2nd intent now."