What secrets and mysteries of Antarctica have been solved today, and what questions still remain unknown. On the southernmost continent of the Earth, there is an extremely harsh climate and a kilometer-long layer of ice, so the conditions for human existence are extremely difficult. Antarctica in this respect is similar to Mars, except that there is more oxygen here. The South Pole contains no less mysteries than the Red Planet. The famous Plato believed that Antarctica is a fragment of the once great Atlantis. It is here, according to some historians, that scientists of the Third Reich conducted tests of flying discs, and polar explorers have encountered unidentified flying objects here for many years.
Antarctica is the sixth continent on our planet. Coldest and harshest place on earth. It has already been 200 years since this continent was discovered, but the mysteries that lie hidden under the ice cover of Antarctica have not yet been revealed.
There were tropics on the sixth continent
The writer and historian Keistut Zakoretsky supports the version according to which Antarctica appeared as a result of a catastrophe of a universal scale. “The origin of Antarctica is extremely mysterious and interesting,” says Keistut Zakoretsky. - Scientists have long ago put forward a version that there was once a single supercontinent on Earth - Gondwana. It united almost all of the land located in the Southern Hemisphere. It is believed that it could have existed 750-530 million years ago. Where did he go? He could not evaporate! The reason for the division of the supercontinent could only be cataclysms of cosmic proportions. Geologists are of the opinion that many thousands of years ago the sea level rose by meters. Where did so much water come from on the planet? From space. The Earth's orbit is sometimes crossed by “flying icebergs” - comets with ice cubes in volume. It can be assumedthat one such "iceberg" did not miss the Earth. After crashing into the planet, it began to melt. This water went to the oceans. As a result, many coastal areas previously explored by man were flooded.
The reason for the formation of modern Antarctica could be a wandering planet. Astronomy describes how stars are born, live and die. If the deceased star had its own planets, they would go into space in search of a new star system. Having found such a system, the "abandoned" planet is unlikely to be able to immediately go to a circular orbit - it will be destined to walk several times along the orbits of the planets of a star system that is new to it. And let's imagine that such an "abandoned" planet the size of. Neptune. Will it be reflected on the Earth? Naturally. And not in the best way.
Some researchers suggest that the flight of such a planet happened about 12,500 years ago. And that it was she who caused the destruction of the planet between Mars and Jupiter. On Mars, when this "guest" walked past him, a canyon thousands of kilometers long was formed - a whole piece was pulled out of the planet by gravity. Likewise on Earth, when a wandering planet was nearby, a whole fragment of the earth's crust could be pulled out in the place where the Pacific Ocean is now. There is a theory that the Moon was formed from this fragment. But only a part of the torn out earth's crust went into space - the rest of it "rolled" over the viscous earth's mantle, because of it the supercontinent Gondwana split and Antarctica appeared in the polar latitudes.
Gradually Antarctica was covered with a layer of ice. But once upon a time, as modern studies confirm, there was life - after all, it was in Antarctica, 520 km from the South Pole, that the skull of an ancient crocodile was found, which does not tolerate frost.
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Secret Nazi base in Antarctica
The fact that Antarctica is the former Atlantis, the paradise of the Earth, has been rumored for a long time. This idea was suggested to scientists by Plato: after all, the size of the missing country - 30,000 by 20,000 stages - fits the parameters of Antarctica. In addition, two centuries ago, a map of the Turkish admiral Piri Reins was found, compiled in 1513, where Antarctica is depicted without ice cover. Raines testified that when drawing up the map he used exclusively ancient Greek sources. This theory of Atlantis was once seized upon by Adolf Hitler and researchers from the Ahnenerbe, a German society for the study of ancient German history and ancestral heritage. It is known that, by order of the head of the Nazis, several expeditions were sent to the South Pole, after which the commander of the German submarine fleet, Admiral Doenitz, said:"My submariners have discovered a real earthly paradise … The German submarine fleet is proud to have created an impregnable fortress for the Fuhrer on the other side of the world."
Conspiracy theorists and mystics have repeatedly turned their attention to Antarctica. The thing is that the snow-covered landscapes of the South Pole, in their opinion, hide many secrets. Recently, one of the researchers gave details of what the Nazis built in Antarctica, and also said that he had found the entrance to their lair. True, Richard Waller, a teacher at Keele University in Britain, disagrees with him.
According to one theory, there is a secret base in Antarctica that the Nazis used during World War II. But Dr. Waller believes that what the researchers pass off as a "man-made entrance" to mysterious dungeons is nothing more than a lake basin on the side of a mountain. "Lake ice and snow have partially melted and covered with melt water, hence the darker color," the scientist explained.
The second object that torments the minds is the giant pyramid in Antarctica, which has an unusual resemblance to the pyramids at Giza. According to Waller, "there are many examples of very regular shapes in the natural environment," and glaciers can also take on shapes that are even called "pyramidal peaks."
Recently, an image from satellite images of Google Earth appeared on the Web, on which, according to the researchers of the unknown, a spacecraft that crashed fell.
Mystical mysteries of Antarctica
Below are a number of mysteries and mysteries of Antarctica that boggle the mind.
- An ancient city was found in Antarctica. An American television group went missing 14 years ago, leaving video evidence of the ancient city in Antarctica. The California film crew went missing in 2002 after filming. According to archaeologist Jonathan Gray, the crew's video was not released by the US government after the discovery. The video showed massive archaeological excavations at a depth of 2 to 3 km under the ice. Many experts are convinced that an ancient settlement is hidden under the ice. In addition, the outlines of high pyramidal structures are clearly visible from the ocean. At least three pyramids can be found in Antarctica.
- Mysterious structure. In 2012, an object measuring 14 by 4.5 miles was discovered in Antarctica, so huge that it can be seen on a map. The spot on the Google Earth map, which is clearly visible in the images, is mistaken for a secret research station hidden by the government, or a UFO base.
- Crashed UFO. Conspiracy theorists claim to have found evidence of military vehicles “guarding” the UFO crash site in Antarctica. Something similar to tanks is "guarded" by a strange object measuring 62 by 12 meters.
- Operation High Jump. American naval military operation of 1946-1947, organized to establish a research base Little America IV. The mission was carried out by 13 ships, 4,700 men and 33 aircraft. According to secret documents published in the 90s, the US Navy sent a military expedition not to organize a research base, but to find and destroy the hidden Nazi base. During the American special operation, the Navy was attacked by flying saucers, presumably from Hitler's secret base, built before and during World War II.
- Hitler's secret base and underground structures in Antarctica. On Google Earth maps, you can find two large "inclusions" that are located near the coastline. Someone claims that this is just a natural phenomenon, others claim that these are secret military bases. It is known that during World War II, a Nazi military base was located on Antarctica - it was founded between December 1938 and April 1939. It is assumed that not only new weapons were tested on the base, but also secret developments based on extraterrestrial technologies were carried out. The base itself was a network of underground structures.
- A giant, elusive sea creature off the coast of the continent. The object was discovered quite by accident, according to many, it may not be a living creature, but an underwater UFO. The total length of the strange object is about 25 meters.
A lot of time has passed since the discovery of Antarctica, but until now this icy continent remains the most mysterious on the planet. Antarctica keeps its secrets under a multi-kilometer ice sheet. One of the main mysteries is the gravity anomaly in the Wilkes Land area. During a flyby over Antarctica in 2002, NASA satellites recorded an unexpected gravitational impulse that emanated from a vast under-ice space with a diameter of about 500 kilometers.
A scientific team led by Ohio University professor Ralph von Frese in 2006 discovered in the area the presence of a giant crater, inside which is a dense mass about 300 kilometers wide, which went 848 meters deep. Presumably, a metal object was hidden inside the crater.
Scientists have suggested that the remains of a huge asteroid lie under the ice of Antarctica. However, it remains unclear how the Earth was able to survive during a collision with such a monstrous mass.
According to the researchers of Antarctica, there is a certain cosmic body in Wilkes Land, but it is still impossible to get close to it. Such an expedition would require a huge amount of resources and its estimated cost is comparable to the cost of a manned flight to Mars.
While it is not possible to find out the truth about the mysterious object in the bowels of Antarctica, the conspiracy theorists are putting forward their theories. Many believe that an alien ship crashed on the icy continent or a base for extraterrestrial civilizations was built.
For almost a century, scientists have been tormented by the mystery of the bloody waterfall in Antarctica. It flows out of the Taylor Glacier. Until now, it has not been possible to explain the phenomenon. The secret was revealed by American scientists.
It turned out that the red water was trapped under the glacier for a million years. Its source was found using radar. The hue is associated with the presence of iron in the water.
It is also interesting that water can remain in a liquid state even at very low temperatures. She melts the ice around her. Scientists say that, despite the paradox of the fact, when water freezes, it gives off heat, which melts the surrounding cold ice.
Scientists from NASA recently discovered in Larsen, one of the most vulnerable glaciers in Antarctica, a giant crack 112 kilometers long and 100 meters wide. According to scientists, its appearance indicates the beginning of the disintegration of the ice massif and the formation of a mega-iceberg with an area of 6.5 thousand square kilometers. This area is comparable to the size of the American state of Delaware and is about one seventh of the area of the Moscow region.
The Martian meteorite we know as Allan Hills 84001 was found in the Alan Hills Mountains in Antarctica on December 27, 1984. This finding caused a wide public outcry due to the fact that fossilized microscopic structures that could be bacteria were found on the surface of the meteorite. The question of the extraterrestrial origin of bacteria is still open, but the fact that the size of the structures found is 20–100 nanometers in diameter, which is much smaller than any known form of cell life, speaks in its favor.
The uniqueness of ALH 84001 is also in the fact that, according to research data, it broke away from its home planet 4 billion years ago, when there was still liquid water, the rest of the meteorites found on Earth no longer belong to the era of "wet" Mars.
Lake under four kilometers of ice
One of the largest geographical discoveries of the twentieth century is the subglacial Lake Vostok, which was discovered in Antarctica. The most amazing thing about this find is that it was hidden under a layer of ice 4 km thick. Scientists believe that the lake was cut off from the outside world by a glacier for several million years.
The dimensions of the East are amazing: the total area of the lake is about 16,000 square meters. km, and the depth can reach 1 200 m. Most likely, it remains unfrozen due to underground geothermal sources. Drilling the well was a difficult and time-consuming process, it began in 1989, was suspended in 1999 and only returned in 2006 to be completed in 2013.
Since 2015, the active stage of studying the lake has begun. In a water sample, scientists found microorganisms, one of which is of an unknown species. But these were samples from the surface, the most interesting thing will begin when they can get samples from the bottom, where, according to assumptions, the water is heated by thermal springs and is suitable for life. Perhaps, scientists will soon be able to find unprecedented types of creatures. Who knows how evolution developed in the closed ecosystem of the East.
Burnt forest
The fact that Antarctica was once a green continent, scientists have guessed since the time of the first expeditions to a new earth. However, they recently made a discovery that has puzzled modern science: over and over again in different regions of Antarctica they find burnt and fossilized forests, which not only prove the theory of "green Antarctica", but also pose a new challenge for scientists - to determine what happened to the forest.
Three new lakes and another lake basin were discovered by Czech researchers under the ice shell of Antarctica. This is another success of the specialists of the Astronomical and Geological Institutes of the Czech Academy of Sciences on the way to uncovering the secrets of the frozen continent. A little earlier, Czech scientists were lucky to discover two volcanoes in Antarctica, called Zuzana and Dana, as well as five subglacial lakes. These frozen bodies of water also received female names.
To explore the continent hidden under the eternal ice, Czech scientists used a technique that in the past made it possible to discover the already mentioned hills. The researchers analyzed data from measurements of the Earth's gravitational field, collected using the GRACE-1 and GRACE-2 satellites, which have been in low-Earth orbit since 2002 and flying 220 kilometers from each other.
