Satellite Spots Massive Object Hidden Under the Frozen Wastes of Antarctica (thesun.co.uk) 296
schwit1 quotes a report from The Sun: Scientists believe a massive object which could change our understanding of history is hidden beneath the Antarctic ice. The huge and mysterious "anomaly" is thought to be lurking beneath the frozen wastes of an area called Wilkes Land. It stretches for a distance of 151 miles across and has a maximum depth of about 848 meters. Some researchers believe it is the remains of a truly massive asteroid which was more than twice the size of the Chicxulub space rock which wiped out the dinosaurs. If this explanation is true, it could mean this killer asteroid caused the Permian-Triassic extinction event which killed 96 percent of Earth's sea creatures and up to 70 percent of the vertebrate organisms living on land.This "Wilkes Land gravity anomaly" was first uncovered in 2006, when NASA satellites spotted gravitational changes which indicated the presence of a huge object sitting in the middle of a 300 mile wide impact crater.
Here we go (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Here we go (Score:5, Funny)
I'll bet on lavos due the catchy tune.
Re:Here we go (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder (Score:2)
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I must have slept thru that part of the movie.
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It was only 15 years ago.
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It's from the book "2001, A Space Odyssey". I don't think it was expressed in the movie, so the target audience for the joke is literate old people.
Re: I wonder (Score:2)
Look at the bright side (Score:5, Funny)
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Or it could be another giant UFO full of alien colonists missed by Mulder in 1998.
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Wasn't that in the arctic?
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If true, I would be pissed off on how many times Superman could had saved the day but didn't. Where was he during 911?
Re: Look at the bright side (Score:2)
When the towers fell, I'm pretty sure Superman was in a wheelchair. Give him a break.
Re:Here we go (Score:4, Informative)
City of the Elder Things beyond the Mountains of Madness
The Sun does Science (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The Sun does Science (Score:5, Informative)
Well Slashdot is quoting a science article from the Sun 'newspaper'
I missed that. Non-UK Slashdotters might not know that The Sun (a Murdock newspaper) is the trashiest daily paper in the UK, even worse than the Mirror. A Sun factoid is that the editorial policy imposes a ~1000 word vocabulary set up in the spell checkers (it may be 2000, variable, but very low anyway), to use a word outside which a writer needs special permission from the editor.
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Say what you like about The Sun's journalists, but they can all spell Murdoch.
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Adam, the First Angel.
Brace for (Second) Impact!
=Smidge=
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Those pesky Russians...
Re:Here we go (Score:4, Funny)
Borg ... (Score:2)
So, "Alien" or "The Thing"? What are your bets guys?
Assuming "Alien" is referring to a "xenomorph" we might want to add Borg to the list.
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What are your bets guys?
I'm betting that Kurt Russell faked drinking from that bottle and it was actually a molotov cocktail.
No to the obligatory XKCD (Score:2)
This one deserves an obligatory Far Side comic.
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Cthulhu. "Beyond The Mountains of Madness"
ia ia fhtagn!
[John]
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Cthulhu wasn't really involved in the Mountains of Madness.
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A Stargate, of course. Those silly things have a tendency to show up in the Antarctic [wikia.com].
Re:Here we go (Score:5, Funny)
"...a huge object sitting in the middle of a 300 mile wide impact crater."
Yes, I think we can dismiss "asteroid" as too far-fetched. I mean, why would an asteroid choose to specifically land in the middle of an impact crater? Now, a Nazi base for alien flying saucer landings? It's the only thing that makes sense.
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So, "Alien" or "The Thing"? What are your bets guys?
Neither. It's where the Vorlons are hanging out while they create human telepaths. Next couple decades outta be interesting.
Re: Here we go (Score:2)
Mountains of Madness, dude.
Obvious anomaly answers (Score:5, Funny)
1) It's the collected lost socks and keys of the planet. They all fell to the bottom.
2) It's Cowboy Neal's porn stash.
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Yo mama!
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*unzips*
I'm ready.
Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously? You linked to the fucking Sun newspaper? For a science article?
I'm done with this site.
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Slashdot and the sun are pretty much on the same level.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot and the sun are pretty much on the same level.
No, The Sun has editors that actually edit.
Re: Seriously? (Score:5, Informative)
Agreed. BeauHD should be ashamed for posting this. While there are a lot of sources that there is, indeed, a crater buried under the ice, there are no credible sources about a massive object being detected. In fact, a lot of the posts about thr supposed object are speculating that there's either a Nazi base or a UFO buried under the ice. Although either one might make for an interesting X-Files story (and this was done in Fight the Future), there doesn't seem to be any credible science involved here. It's a bunch of lunatic conspiracy theories, with no reputable sources. BeauHD should be ashamed of posting this. It marks a new low for Slashdot.
Re: Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. Large (dangerous) asteroids do not survive their descent. Ever. The largest single meteorite ever found is only 60 tonnes (Hoba meteorite), and it took exceptional circumstances for it to survive (an extremely shallow entry trajectory). If an impact is excavating a large (or even small) crater, it's turning to gas and/or plasma in the process.
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Re: Seriously? (Score:4, Informative)
You're not getting that it's physically impossible for a large object to survive. "Releasing enough energy to cause mass extinctions across the entire planet" and "remaining with large pieces intact" are mutually exclusive. The "immensity of forces" is precisely the problem. It's like expecting pieces of the casing to survive the detonation of an atomic bomb. Only many orders of magnitude less likely.
As for cracking the planet into separate plates, however, that's not that far fetched; there is a legitimate (although controversial) scientific hypothesis that such an impact weakened the crust there and helped allow for Antarctica to break off. And collisions are a leading, relatively non-controversial theory to explain axial tilts - although primarily collisions during formation and potentially the late heavy bombardment.
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"Indeed. Large (dangerous) asteroids do not survive their descent. Ever. "
Cape York Group (which when you put all the fragments together outweighs Hoba by about ten tons, with the two largest fragments coming in at nearly 52 tons combined.)
Willamette.
Mbosi.
Bacubirito.
All of those hit the earth with nuclear force and you can prove that by the stishovite found at each site. They all survived, otherwise we'd not have them in our physical possession and recorded.
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Are you serious? After all the other shit that BeauHD posts - to the point that intelligent readers see "posted by BeauHD" and assume a load of crap that most likely has a left-wing conspiratorial slant to it (to align with her mad social media ravings about the evils of republicans) ... ...and you draw the line at the Sun attempting to report something non-partisan about a maybe scientific thing?
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Informative)
Link to a scientific paper published last June with a decent set of arguments as to why it is more likely an impact crater than other types of geological formation. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273313440_The_Wilkes_Land_Anomaly_revisited [researchgate.net]
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The comment you responded to didn't indicate that the person was a liberal
"Infested by Trump supporters". I think it's safe to assume they're not very taken with the GOP right now...
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"Infested by Trump supporters".
Nah, this is just a fancy way of saying they were swooned by Trumps pussy grabbing family fun antics.
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I still fondly remember this site when every single discussion dissolved into how Bush was responsible.
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So, what your saying is that it is Bush's fault and we need him back to focus the nerd rage? Well, I guess someone has to do it.
Bush is the reason why /. has Russian trolls and Trump supporters.
I feel cold inside.
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I feel cold inside.
Probably because the Bush recession and his cronies in the oil industry made it so you could not afford heat.
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I remember when JonKatz was blamed for everything!
Nowadays, it's systemd.
To be fair, everything wrong with the world is acutally systemd's fault.
Better source? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Better source? (Score:4, Insightful)
Im not sure 'thesun.co.uk' is the best source for science news!
Well at least it wasn't the Daily Mail.
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Is it Iron? (Score:3)
Unfortunately I'm not a mining expert but isn't much (most?) of the iron available to humanity basically meteorites? I mean most of the iron that the earth formed with sank to the core since it is (much?) denser than the surrounding molten rock?
And wasn't this thing detected because it was a gravity or mass anomaly? A chunk of iron that big could be quite valuable! Here comes the despoiling of the Antarctic, a job made possible by global warming and the "who cares" approach to the environment of our soon to be in office leader.
Re: Is it Iron? (Score:4, Informative)
Although there is a concentration of mass at the center of the proposed Wilkes Land Crater, as discovered about ten years ago, it's not the remnants of an asteroid. Instead, it's believed to be due to upwelling of molten rock from the mantle as a result of the impact.
Re: Is it Iron? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep - just like the Sudbury deposit. Probably a great spot to mine, if it wasn't buried beneath ice and in an area where mining is illegal. Large impact crater floors tend to stay molten for so long that they stratify, so you can find portions of the deposit rich in different minerals, such as nickel, copper, and precious metals.
It's one thing that Mars has over Earth in terms of mineral deposits. While Mars lacks relevant recent fluvial mineral concentration mechanisms, as well as those aided by life, by oxidation, and a number of other processes, it's also struck more often by large asteroids, and thus probably has more common stratified impact deposits.
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if it wasn't buried beneath ice
We're working on that. And they said nothing good would come from Global warming.
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I live in Iceland. Apart from the increasing habitability to pests, and the aesthetic loss of our retreating glaciers, it's pretty nice up here. Tack on five degrees and we're Seattle. ;)
Re:Is it Iron? (Score:4, Informative)
Erm (Score:3, Insightful)
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nah, they just added the Ancient Astronauts Believers to their list of easily duped readers. They should have interviewed the Greek guy with the electric hair for the article, he's always good for a stupid quote or two.
Seriously? The Sun? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't you post a link to The Mirror as well [mirror.co.uk]? At least they don't dance around and call it a lost Nazi UFO base right away.
What the fuck is going on with this site?
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no wonder the Nazis lost, they couldn't even keep track of a base that was 150 miles wide.
Linky... (Score:3, Informative)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2008GC002149/full
Get it right (Score:5, Informative)
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For the UK, and this was in a UK paper, that is pretty normal and consistent with most other publications.
Newspapers will measure large distances in miles, as that's what we use for our roads, but short distances in metres, as they're what we are taught in school.
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I am more interested in the number of turkeys it would take to fill that volume.
We need: Turkey Volume Guessing Man
Crow: Well, behold, for that is my power. I can guess the number of turkeys it would take to fill any given space, for I am Turkey Volume Guessing Man!
Tom: And this is useful because...?
Crow: Sadly, it is not useful at all. And so my powers isolate me and I am a puzzle to the ordinary run of man, although women are drawn to me for my powers are fascinating. And yet there is no woman who can hol
I know what it is (Score:5, Funny)
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Indeed!
Alien vs Predator (Score:2)
Nuke it from orbit...
Come on... (Score:5, Informative)
I can't believe you guys posted this crap. This is stale - the news itself about the land crater dates back to 2006. Next, this article is from *The Sun* which is akin to National Enquirer. Nazi UFO base? Give me a break...... The WLC itself is pretty cool and interesting, but there are other articles that would've sucked a lot less. Here's an example: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/heres... [ibtimes.co.uk] CHOOSE A BETTER SOURCE.
Mulder, Skully - Could you come into my office! (Score:2)
The inevitable X-Files reference!
The next reference is "Star Gate - Antarctica"
Which one? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Please don't degrade this discussion with reference to mere fantasy and non-existent aliens.
If there's going to be an expedition to this site, it's Shoggoths they need to worry about.
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I'm not sure I agree.
During William Dyer's expedition in 1931, the Shoggoths didn't appear to cause any injury to anybody on the expedition -- though in fairness, the survivors high-tailed it away as soon as they started hearing the Shoggoths coming. On the other hand, something even older than the Shoggoths nearly exterminated the entire expedition.
It's also not clear that Shoggoths are of extra-terrestrial origin; they may have originated on Earth.
None of the above (Score:2)
It's merely a mounting socket, with the topmost elephant still in it.
What's worrisome is that they didn't detect the whole stack of elephants going down. I fear the top one has slipped off the stack, leaving our planet's stability to the vagaries of gravity and orbits and stuff.
let me guess (Score:2)
They send a team out to dig it up and right when they unearth the creature a storm blows up and isolates them.
Documentary (Score:2, Funny)
There was already a documentary on it, called "The Thing," by John Carpenter.
Very informative and worth watching.
It's either paywalls or tabloids (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the problem. A very quick google search will turn up research papers on on the Wilkes Land Anomaly, but they are mostly behind paywalls or "free registration", etc, etc.
A person can play video games, read tabloids, browse conspiracy websites, watch porn or gamble for "free" online all day long, but the minute you want serious information on any topic nowadays, the serious research is almost always behind "paywalls". For the average person who is not involved in some form of academia, how many east to find alternatives (other than wikipedia) are there out there? More importantly, hwo easy are they to find and access as compared o the others? As long as we as a society continue to operate this way, then society as a whole will continue to "dumb down" in general. "idiocracy" here we come. :(
Re:It's either paywalls or tabloids (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed. Paywalled, for-profit scientific research journals have done more to contribute to the dumbing down of society than just about anything else in modern history except television (and not just because of the paywalls).
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Actually, the US taxpayer has paid for a lot of that research, the only reason it sits behind a paywall is because of the big name publishers that want to make money, not from you, the average joe that wants to read an article, they charge hefty fees so peer researchers have to pay in order to continue or verify their work. Some times researchers are even forced to pay for their own work when they move institutions.
Rather obvious now that it's almost certainly (Score:3)
They finally found the Macross (Score:2)
We are only 17 years after what was predicted : that's not so bad.
Easy... (Score:2)
very strong gravitational anomaly... Antarctic... This one is easy.
It's a Stargate.
No need to space mine (Score:2)
If that asteroid is as big as that and accessible it may be the most valuable mining site in the world.
"Mutineers' Moon" reference (Score:3)
I can't believe I'm the first one to post a reference to Mutineers' Moon [wikipedia.org]. Clearly this is Anu's stronghold, and we need to invade it before he finds a way to take over the ship that replaced our moon.
David Weber for the win!
completely idiotic (Score:2)
Old news? (Score:2)
Crappy Reporting (Score:2, Interesting)
The anomaly was actually discovered in 1959-1960:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antarctic-science/article/the-wilkes-land-anomaly-revisited/44DCA3FC303E6FF82CD3259AD41A2437
by this guy
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/canyoncourier/obituary.aspx?pid=173344814
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilkes_Land_crater
The mass concentration (ie. asteroid remnants) was first discussed in 2006.
Unusual that so many hit continents (Score:2)
It is pretty surprising that so many of these have hit the continents rather than the ocean basin considering most of the planet is ocean. One hitting the ocean basin would not leave much trace due to plate subduction. However, if a large asteroid hit the deep ocean basin, what would the effect be, would the ocean water perhaps prevent the dust and so on from entering the air, instead you would end up with a tsunami , avoiding the climate change? Or would the force oft he comet be such that the dust would m
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Big impacts don't matter if they're on the continents or on t
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It does name a scientist (after scrolling underneath the ad).. seems they refer to this [wikipedia.org]. The talk page is also informative as to the academic disposition of the research.. It apparently wasn't quite worth the premature hype it got in 2006, and no justification as to why it merits another news article now is provided by TFA.
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The nazis tried to turn an alien asteroid ufo that crashed there eons ago into a base, but it had xenomorphs and they all got ate or turned into baby xeonomorph incubators. At least until some badass non-human combat junkies dreds got bored with buzzing other uncontacted planets and decided to go there and party predator style!
(Did I make enough references in that one? I could probably squeeze in a few more, but it's just about 3am here. Night!)
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Sun readers dont care who runs the country, as long as she has big tits.
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True. The SUN seems to be more credible than Fox News.