It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
That said, many of us which think there could be some sort of disclosure couldnt come at a better time for those wanting to come clean about what they know? This would be a fitting scenario in order to disclose.
The environment is remarkably similar to the dark and cold ocean below the surface of Jupiter’s ice moon Europa, so the discovery of life in Vostok could have interesting extraterrestrial implications.
At present,(2007) a number of researchers are mulling over methods to investigate the lake’s unique ecosystem without defiling its pristine nature. The introduction of any organisms or chemicals from the surface could irreversibly pollute its waters, and there is a small but real possibility that the lake’s alien organisms could be dangerous to humans. To date, the best candidate seems to be the cryobot, a fittingly phallic penetrating probe designed to gingerly work its way into the virgin lake. Its heated tip would melt a channel straight into the ice as it unspools a power and communications line behind it. The melted water would quickly re-freeze behind the cryobot in temperatures which linger around minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and once it finally reached the water it would eject a small submersible hydrobot to capture images and take measurements.
Sound familiar rev?
Its heated tip would melt a channel straight into the ice as it unspools a power and communications line behind it. The melted water would quickly re-freeze behind the cryobot
Now considering the fact that the Russians, Americans, French and British are involved then who is/are the rivals and why would someone be classed as a rival considering rival means
Though most scientists are proceeding with considerable caution, and some advocate avoiding the lake altogether, there are reports that the Russian researchers intend to restart drilling in order to reach the lake before their rivals.
1. a person who is competing for the same object or goal as another, or who tries to equal or outdo another; competitor. 2. a person or thing that is in a position to dispute another's preeminence or superiority: a stadium without a rival. 3. Obsolete . a companion in duty.
The Antarctic Treaty of 1961 guarantees all nations the right to conduct non-military scientific study on the continent, therefore little can be done to intervene if the men at Vostok station insist upon proceeding.
geologists speculate many of these are linked by a network of under-ice rivers, so contaminating just one lake might taint them all beyond repair.
Iridium ( /ɨˈrɪdiəm/ i-rid-ee-əm) is the chemical element with atomic number 77
Iridium was discovered in 1803 among insoluble impurities in natural platinum. Smithson Tennant, the primary discoverer, named the iridium for the goddess Iris, personification of the rainbow, because of the striking and diverse colors of its salts.
Iridium is found in meteorites with an abundance much higher than its average abundance in the Earth's crust. For this reason the unusually high abundance of iridium in the clay layer at the K–T geologic boundary gave rise to the Alvarez hypothesis that the impact of a massive extraterrestrial object caused the extinction of dinosaurs and many other species 65 million years ago.
Iridium is the most corrosion-resistant metal known:[10] it is not attacked by almost any acid, aqua regia, molten metals or silicates at high temperatures.
Osmium–iridium is used for compass bearings and for balances.
Iridium has been used in the radioisotope thermoelectric generators of unmanned spacecraft such as the Voyager, Viking, Pioneer, Cassini, Galileo, and New Horizons.
reply to post by KillShotMi
In fact, I would say, you are the only one to see the link, or connection. Instead of just saying "read" ... can you just give a paragraph or 2 detailing what made you realize this connection.
Drilling successful as scientists break through into lake buried miles under Antarctic ice Scientists confirm breakthrough into buried lake Have raised sample of 40 litres of water Frozen sample will be removed in December in next Antarctic summer 'Like exploring another planet except this one is ours', scientist Lake has had no contact with man-made pollutants or Earthly life forms for millions of years Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... 8
It cited Admiral Karl Dontiz in 1943 saying ‘Germany's submarine fleet is proud that it created an unassailable fortress for the Fuehrer on the other end of the world’, in Antarctica. According to German naval archives, months after the Nazis surrendered to the Allies in April 1945, a U-530 submarine arrived at the South Pole from the Port of Kiel. The crew are rumoured to have constructed a still undiscovered ice cave ‘and supposedly stored several boxes of relics from the Third Reich, including Hitler's secret files’. A later claim was that a U-977 submarine delivered remains of Hitler and Eva Braun to Antarctica in the hope they could be cloned from their DNA. The submariners then went to Argentina to surrender, it was claimed. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... E
The scientists returned 40 litres of water to the surface - water isolated from earthly life forms since before Man existed. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... b
The scientists will later remove the frozen sample for analysis in December when the next Antarctic summer comes. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... L
They have now left the site
The Russian researchers have insisted the bore would only slightly touch the lake's surface and that a surge in pressure will send the water rushing up the shaft where it will freeze, immediately sealing out the toxic chemicals. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... P
Valery Lukin, the head of Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI), which is in charge of the mission, said in Wednesday's statement that his team reached the lake's surface on Sunday. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... 6
(wikipedia)
Other countries, particularly the United States and Britain, have failed to persuade the Russians not to pierce to the lake until cleaner technologies such as hot-water drilling are available.[51] Though the Russians claim to have improved their operations, they continue to use the same borehole, which has already been filled with kerosene.
Lukin has previously compared the Lake Vostok effort to the moon race that the Soviet Union lost to the United States, telling the Russian media he was proud that Russia will be the first this time. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... y
'There is no other place on Earth that has been in isolation for more than 20 million years,' said Lev Savatyugin, a researcher with the AARI. 'It's a meeting with the unknown.' Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... 9
Savatyugin said scientists hope to find primeval bacteria that could expand the human knowledge of the origins of life. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... p
40 litres obtained from a volume of what? Do you see what i mean here. Go to a lake get a cup full, will it tell you much?
Lake Vostok is 160 miles long and 30 miles across at its widest point, similar in area to Lake Ontario. It lies about 2.4 miles beneath the surface and is the largest in a web of nearly 400 known subglacial lakes in Antarctica. The lake is warmed underneath by geothermal energy. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... W
What happens that means that the scientists must leave?
The Russian team reached the lake just before they had to leave at the end of the Antarctic summer season. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... N
Scientists believe that microbial life may exist in the dark depths of the lake despite its high pressure and constant cold - conditions similar to those expected to be found under the ice crust on Mars, Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's move Enceladus. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... b
'In the simplest sense, it can transform the way we think about life,' NASA's chief scientist Waleed Abdalati told the AP by email. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... 5
Scientists in other nations hope to follow up this discovery with similar projects. American and British teams are drilling to reach their own subglacial Antarctic lakes, but Bell said those lakes are smaller and younger than Vostok, which is the big scientific prize. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... V
"It is an important milestone that has been completed and a major achievement for the Russians because they've been working on this for years," Professor Martin Siegert, a leading scientist with the British Antarctic Survey, which is trying to reach another Antarctic subglacial lake, Lake Ellsworth. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... 7
In the future, Russian researchers plan to explore the lake using an underwater robot equipped with video cameras that would collect water samples and sediments from the bottom of the lake, a project still awaiting the approval of the Antarctic Treaty organization. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk... c
A Possible lake?
In 1973 British scientists in Antarctica performed airborne ice-penetrating radar survey and detected a possible lake.
Are you thinking what i am?
In 1991, the European remote sensing satellite ERS-1 confirmed the 1973 discovery of a large lake below four kilometers of ice, named Lake Vostok.[2] The lake is thought to be uncontaminated. NASA was planning to use a cryobot to explore the lake,[3][4] which is the fifth largest freshwater lake in the world.
ERS-1 carried an array of earth-observation instruments that gathered information about the Earth (land, water, ice and atmosphere) using a variety of measurement principles. These included:
RA (Radar Altimeter) is a single frequency nadir-pointing radar altimeter operating in the Ku band.
ATSR-1 (Along-Track Scanning Radiometer) is a 4 channel infrared radiometer and microwave sounder for measuring temperatures at the sea-surface and the top of clouds.
SAR (synthetic aperture radar) operating in C band can detect changes in surface heights with sub-millimeter precision.
Wind Scatterometer used to calculate information on wind speed and direction.
MWR is a Microwave Radiometer used in measuring atmospheric water, as well as providing a correction for the atmospheric water for the altimeter.
To accurately determine its orbit, the satellite included the
PRARE (Precision Range and Range-Rate Equipment) and a Laser Retroreflector. The PRARE was non-operational since launch. The Retroreflector was used for calibrating the Radar Altimeter to within 10 cm.
Ra (alternatively spelled Re and properly transliterated as Rꜥ) is the ancient Egyptian sun god. By the Fifth Dynasty he had become a major deity in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the mid-day sun. The meaning of the name is uncertain, but it is thought that if not a word for 'sun' it may be a variant of or linked to words meaning 'creative power' and 'creator'
As above so........
The nadir (from Arabic: نظير / ALA-LC: naẓīr; meaning "opposite") is the direction pointing directly below a particular location; that is, it is one of two vertical directions at a specified location, orthogonal to a horizontal flat surface there. Since the concept of being below is itself somewhat vague, scientists define the nadir in more rigorous terms. Specifically, in astronomy, geophysics and related sciences (e.g., meteorology), the nadir at a given point is the local vertical direction pointing in the direction of the force of gravity at that location. The direction opposite of the nadir is the zenith.
Nadir also refers to the downward-facing viewing geometry of an orbiting satellite,[1] such as is employed during remote sensing of the atmosphere, as well as when an astronaut faces the Earth while performing an EVA.
This diagram depicts a satellite observing backscattered sunlight in the nadir viewing geometry.
The word is also used figuratively to mean the lowest point of a person's spirits,[2] or the quality of an activity or profession.[3]
The term nadir can also be used to represent the lowest point reached by a celestial body during its apparent orbit around a given point of observation. This can be used to describe the location of the Sun, but it is only technically accurate for one latitude at a time and only possible at the low latitudes. The sun is said to be at the nadir at a location when it is at the zenith at the location's antipode.
You mean we have another on top of HAARP and the LHC?
A radar scatterometer is designed to determine the normalized radar cross section (sigma-0) of the surface. Scatterometers operate by transmitting a pulse of microwave energy towards the Earth's surface and measuring the reflected energy.
In 1991 ESA launched the European Remote-Sensing Satellite ERS-1 Advanced Microwave Instrument (AMI) scatterometer,[3] followed by the ERS-2 AMI scatterometer in 1995. Both AMI fan-beam systems operated at C-band (5.6 GHz). In 1996 NASA launched the NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT),[4] a Ku-band fan-beam system.[5] NASA launched the first scanning scatterometer, known as 'SeaWinds', on QuikSCAT in 1999. It operated at Ku-band. A second SeaWinds instrument was flown on the NASDA ADEOS-2 in 1993. ESA launched the first C-band ASCAT in 2007.
...
the surface of the lower 70 cm of the ice core was glazed, as if it were submerged to water just before recovery. No ducts or capillaries in the ice core body were visually observed at this. Exactly this contact with the water lens in the borehole was erroneously interpreted by some mass media as a real penetration to the lake water layer.
Indicating that whatever water was in the bore hole at that time - yes - it likely came from the lake, still the drill itself had not penetrated the lake's surface water - yet.
(AP) MOSCOW - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday praised the Russian scientists who have reached a gigantic freshwater lake in Antarctica hidden under more than two miles of ice, a pristine body of water that may hold life from the distant past. On national television, Russia's natural resources minister gave Putin a canister of water from melted ice at the bottom of the boreshaft near the surface of Lake Vostok. The footage appeared aimed at showing Russia's scientific prowess and helping Putin's bid to reclaim the presidency in March's election. Putin hailed the discovery of Lake Vostok as a "great event" and said the research team members will receive national awards.
On Friday, Trutnev arrived at a meeting with Putin and delivered a flask of water bearing a label reading "Lake Vostok, more than million years old, depth 3,769.3 meters, 5.12.11, Antarctic." Read more: www.upi.com...
Pre-historic water for the PM It is the first sample of water and it has not yet been analyzed, the minister said. Trutnev said the water could be older than 1 million years. However, according to some experts, it may be from 1 million to 30 million years old. Putin asked Trutnev whether he drank the water, to which the minister admitted that he had not. “It would be interesting: the dinosaurs drank it and so did Trutnev,” joked the prime minister.