Washington [US], January 11: A groundbreaking research mission in Antarctica uncovered mysterious structures deep beneath a melting ice shelf, before the submersible unexpectedly vanished without a trace.
A submersible operating beneath the Dotson ice shelf sent back the most detailed images ever taken of the underside of an Antarctic glacier . Then, the submersible disappeared. However, before its disappearance, the submersible managed to record structures that scientists have yet to explain.
The mission is part of a joint research program called ITGC, conducted by British and American scientists, according to the Daily Galaxy on January 9.
The mission's objective is to understand how the West Antarctic ice shelves respond to changes in sea surface temperature.
In 2022, the research team deployed Ran, an autonomous underwater vehicle developed by Swedish scientists, to explore the hollow space beneath the Dotson ice shelf.
Ran traveled over 1,000 km in a 27-day survey, collecting high-resolution sonar images of more than 140 km² of mysterious terrain beneath the ice. This is an area never before mapped in such detail and never before known, according to a peer-reviewed report in the journal Science Advances .
"We have been able to create high-resolution maps of the underside of the ice shelf. This feels like the first time humans have seen the far side of the moon," said Professor Anna Wahlin, an oceanographer at the University of Gothenburg (Germany), in a statement from the British Antarctic Survey.
Research shows that the Dotson ice shelf is thinning unevenly. And the maps provided by Ran represent a major step forward in our understanding of Antarctic ice shelves, according to glaciologist Karen Alley of the University of Manitoba (Canada).
In early 2024, the researchers returned to Dotson to repeat parts of the mission and analyze changes in the underlying structure.
During a subsequent dive, Ran entered the compartment beneath the ice shelf to conduct a planned 24-hour survey, but did not return.
Subsequent search efforts failed to detect any acoustic signals or debris that could have originated from the submersible. To this day, Ran's final location remains a mystery.
Source: Thanh Nien Newspaper