An underwater vehicle went missing after it exploded under the “Doomsday Glacier” in Antarctica.
The 23-foot-long unmanned underwater vehicle (AUV), which was called Ran, was sent on a mission to study the Thwaites Glacier, and it disappeared this weekend.
Ran is a unique vehicle and there are only two similar vehicles in the world which contain technology and sensors which allow it to measure and document the conditions of water underneath glacial ice for long periods of time and is likely to cost about $3.6 million.
“This was the second time we took Ran to Thwaites Glacier to document the area under the ice. Thanks to Ran, we became the first researchers in the world to enter Thwaites in 2019, and during the current expedition we have visited the same area again. Even if you see melting and movements in the ice from satellite data, from Ran we get close-ups of the underside of the ice and information about exactly which mechanisms are behind the melting,” said Anna Wahlin, who is a professor of oceanography at the University of Gothenburg and member of the research team, in a statement.
‘Like looking for a needle in a haystack’
The Thwaites Glacier, which has been part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), is the widest glacier present on Earth.
It has a surface area of about 74,000 square miles. Thwaites is also called the Doomsday Glacier because of the massive impact it will have on global sea levels if it were to melt completely.
“A sea level rise of several metres would inundate many of the world’s major cities—including Shanghai, New York, Miami, Tokyo and Mumbai. It would also cover huge swathes of land in coastal regions and largely swallow up low-lying island nations like Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Maldives,” wrote Ella Gilbert, a postdoctoral research associate in climate science at the University of Reading, United Kingdom, in an article for the Conversation in 2021.
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“It’s a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack, but without even knowing where the haystack is. At this point, Ran’s batteries are dead. All we know is that something unexpected happened under the ice. We suspect it ran into trouble, and then something prevented it from getting out,” said Wahlin.
The team is not hoping to find Ran again but has been grateful for the data that they have gathered so far.
(With inputs from agencies)
