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Antarctica

dystopia

Antarctica Is Shrinking Before Your Eyes

The European Space Agency reported on Friday that satellite photos taken over the past several months reveal that the massive Wilkins ice shelf is crumbling, even in the depths of antarctic winter. The scary part is that the bit that's crumbling, as you can see in these images, is a small bridge attaching a massive, thousands-of-square-miles sheet of ice to another. Once this tiny bridge falls apart, it will unleash one of the biggest chunks of ice to break off the frozen continent ever. The ESA estmates the bridge will break up within the next few days. [ESA via Universe Today]

mega geochemistry

Ice Eruptions

They may look like space stations floating in vacuum, but these are actually delicate ice bubbles that formed in Ontario's Cranberry Lake. Michael Runtz took this picture of the segmented shapes created when pockets of air slowly bubble up from the bottom of the lake and get trapped in the freezing water as they move. Want to see what happens when giant ice structures are sculpted by wind? More »

space porn

Ultracold Polar Telescope Searches for Dark Energy

Is an invisible, undetectable force tearing the universe apart? The South Pole Telescope is scanning the skies for signs of dark energy to help pinpoint the cause of cosmic expansion. The answers it provides could allow us to better explain the origin of the universe and its ultimate fate. More »

global warming

Let's Tow the Wilkins Ice Shelf to California

An enormous chunk of the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica started collapsing a few weeks ago. The slab, roughly the size of Connecticut, is "hanging by a thread." What will happen when over 5,000 square miles of ice break free? It could be a part of the coming ecological apocalypse. But if we just use the right technology, that iceberg could mean drinkable water for people in the parched regions of the Western U.S. and Australia where climate change is already creating terrible droughts. More »

robots

A Robot's Vision of Antarctica's Undersea Kingdom

This looks like a rocket entering a wormhole, but it's actually a robot camera designed to function on the ocean floor under the Anatarctic ice. The Submersible Capable of under Ice Navigation and Imaging (SCINI) can fit through a hole in the ice as small as 15 cm. Similar cameras could one day probe a buried ocean on Saturn's moon for unknown life forms. Click through to see the sea life under the polar ice. More »