Imagine this: a high-tech submarine was sent under the thick Antarctic ice to explore the mysterious world beneath. While cruising through the freezing waters, it stumbled upon some strange, unidentified objects that had scientists scratching their heads. Before anyone could figure out what these oddities were, the submarine suddenly went completely off the grid—vanished without a trace! No signals, no wreckage, and no clues about what happened. Some believe it might have been crushed by the ice, while others think the mysterious objects might have been more than they appeared. Animation is created by Bright Side.
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This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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FunTranscript
00:00This sleek, state-of-the-art submarine named RUN was sent to explore the depths of Antarctica.
00:07But as soon as it discovered something, it mysteriously disappeared.
00:11So what happened?
00:15It all started when scientists wanted to explore one of the most remote and mysterious places
00:19on Earth, the Dotson Ice Shelf in West Antarctica.
00:24This ice shelf, silent giant, stretches 30 miles wide.
00:28That's almost the length of New York City.
00:30It stands between two icy promontories, the Martin and Bear peninsulas.
00:35And it hides an entire world of geological mysteries.
00:40If you think that Antarctica is nothing but a desert of super-thick snow and ice, you're
00:45wrong.
00:46There are entire landscapes hidden deep down there.
00:49The underside of the Dotson Ice Shelf is a rugged, dynamic terrain shaped by the slow,
00:54relentless forces of nature.
00:57There are towering ice formations, deep troughs, and bizarre structures stretching for hundreds
01:02of feet.
01:04Scientists are super curious about it, but as you can imagine, this landscape isn't
01:08easy to explore at all.
01:11To find out more, we have to scan the area with satellites or try drilling through the
01:15snow, trying to collect the big picture, piece by piece.
01:20But these methods only gave us vague hints.
01:23The real breakthrough happened when scientists came up with the idea to let the submarines
01:27explore it.
01:28Autonomous submersibles could swoop deep into the icy waters beneath the Dotson Ice Shelf
01:34and tell us what's up down there.
01:37These robotic explorers have fantastic advanced sonar systems.
01:41It's that thing that bats or dolphins do.
01:44They can use sound to see the world.
01:46Basically, they send out sound waves underwater, and when those waves hit something, like the
01:51ice shelf above or the seafloor below, they bounce back to the system.
01:57Animals feel how long it took for the sound waves to return and how they changed.
02:02And this helped them understand what's located where.
02:05For example, clicks that dolphins send out tell them where the fish are.
02:10We copied this crazy evolutionary trick and adapted it to our underwater exploration.
02:16Only our version is much cooler, with a higher level of precision.
02:20So we created detailed maps of the environment.
02:24The RAN submarine was one of those robotic explorers.
02:27It was named after the Norse deity of the sea.
02:30RAN had been meticulously programmed to navigate a treacherous landscape of Antarctica.
02:36But even with all this training, its journey led to an unexpected and eerie end.
02:42In 2019, RAN was sent to explore the depths beneath the Dotson Ice Shelf.
02:47It was a hero, the first one to go on a mission like this.
02:51The team said it was like seeing the other side of the moon.
02:57For 27 straight days, it worked tirelessly.
03:01It traveled over 620 miles beneath the thick ice.
03:05That's like a journey from Paris to Berlin.
03:08RAN went further and deeper than anyone could have imagined.
03:11At one point, it reached over 10 miles into the glacier's belly.
03:15And what it discovered down there was astonishing.
03:19Scientists thought there would be some smooth, uniform ice surfaces.
03:22But RAN revealed an underside marked by huge cracks, ridges.
03:27There were formations that looked like sand dunes, frozen in time.
03:32And finally, it found some mysterious swirling and teardrop-shaped patterns.
03:37They all looked more like art than geology.
03:40This actually tells the story of ice shelves and the ocean around it.
03:45Warm water sneaks in under the ice and melts it from below.
03:49Sometimes it smooths the ice out, but other times it carves out these weird, uneven shapes
03:53that look like patterns and drawings.
03:56And some of these shapes are huge, over 1,300 feet long.
04:00That's about three and a half football fields.
04:04The reason why they look like swirling doodles is because the Earth spins.
04:08It makes the water turn in special ways, bending the shapes and drawing these spirals.
04:14It's called the Coriolis effect.
04:16Imagine you were on a merry-go-round and tried to throw something like a ball.
04:20It would go in a curve, not a straight line.
04:23Same thing happens with the water on Earth.
04:26Later, scientists found similar patterns in other Antarctic ice shelves, though they weren't
04:31as epic as the ones under Dotson.
04:34But RAN also discovered something horrifying.
04:38Turns out that these warm waters, aside from being great artists, are also a huge danger.
04:44The Dotson ice shelf isn't just hanging out serenely on the sea.
04:48It's part of a very delicate system, and acts as a protective barrier that holds back huge
04:54glaciers in West Antarctica.
04:57The ice shelf is floating on the ocean, but it's still connected to the land.
05:02As warm water sneaks underneath it and the ice melts, the Dotson can't hold on to the
05:06land as tightly anymore.
05:09The protective barrier starts to weaken, and this lets the glaciers behind it move faster
05:13into the ocean.
05:15When those glaciers flow into the sea, they add more water, which could cause sea levels
05:19to rise, eventually changing our coastlines.
05:24RAN stumbled upon huge pockets where the ice was melting at alarming rates, all due to
05:29powerful underwater currents.
05:31It was like seeing a ticking clock on the glacier.
05:35The stakes were high, but luckily the submarine was ready.
05:38This time, it managed to return.
05:41And then it worked for five more years, helping scientists with tons of useful data.
05:47The missions were daunting.
05:49There could be periods where RAN slipped into the pitch black cavity beneath the glaciers,
05:53spending 24 hours without communication.
05:56But it was mapping every peak and every valley.
05:59It gained experience from over 40 missions below ice.
06:04Then in early 2024, RAN went on a mission to the Thwaites Glacier.
06:09The mission was bold from the start.
06:11This place is also ominously referred to as the Doomsday Glacier.
06:16It's called that because it's slowly melting and has the potential to raise sea levels
06:20worldwide if it collapses, causing catastrophes everywhere.
06:25That's why RAN was dispatched to explore its underbelly, a place that had never been mapped
06:30so intricately before.
06:32The idea was to uncover the glacier's secrets, study how rapidly it was melting, and why.
06:40This was RAN's second time exploring Thwaites.
06:43During the previous visit, it became the first sub to ever map the glacier's underside.
06:49RAN was exploring the depths from 650 feet to 1,650 feet.
06:54It sent a lot of data about how the Doomsday Glacier was slowly melting due to warm ocean
06:59currents.
07:01While venturing into these icy depths, something went wrong.
07:06Out of nowhere, RAN vanished.
07:09Without warning, without a trace.
07:13One moment it was sending back crucial data, and the next it had slipped into the abyss.
07:18No distress signals, no final transmission, and it didn't return to the point it was supposed
07:24to.
07:26People sent extensive searches, helicopters soared overhead, drones buzzed through the
07:31frozen skies, but no sign of the submersible emerged from the glacier's grasp.
07:37After a while, RAN's batteries would certainly run away.
07:40So at this point, it had definitely been swallowed by the abyss beneath 1,500 feet of ice.
07:47That was a huge and sad loss for the scientific team.
07:50The scientists at the University of Gothenburg are now looking to replace RAN and continue
07:55their important research under Thwaites.
07:58To this day, scientists have no idea what happened to it.
08:02Some say it may have been trapped in the ice.
08:05Others believe it was pulled away by an unseen current.
08:08It also might have collided with something unexpected.
08:12Whatever the truth is, its disappearance has left scientists stunned, and it looks like
08:16the ice shelf will hold on to its secrets a little longer.
08:20At least we gained a treasure trove of knowledge from RAN's journey.
08:24Scientists keep exploring Antarctica, looking for history that hides under the snow.
08:29For example, they discovered that around 90 million years ago, a lush temperate rainforest
08:33thrived near the South Pole.
08:36They revealed an ancient world far warmer than they ever imagined.
08:40Deep in Antarctica, they unearthed fossilized roots, pollen, and spores preserved in the
08:46soil.
08:47All this shows that there was a swampy rainforest that flourished despite months of polar darkness.
08:54All these discoveries changed our understanding of Earth's climate, both in the past and
08:59the future.
09:00That's it for today, so hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like
09:06and share it with your friends!
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