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<ul class="summary-list"><li>A legendary Danish coin collection will go up for sale later this year after 100 years.</li><li>The auction house handling the sale says the collection is worth $72 million.</li></ul><p>One of the most valuable privately-owned coin collections is headed to auction later this year after spending more than a century shrouded in secrecy.</p><p>The collection once belonged to Danish businessman and butter tycoon Lars Emil Bruun, who spent decades compiling the nearly 20,000 coins, bank notes, and medals that comprise the set. For over a century, the collection has been kept out of the public eye due to a stipulation in Bruun's will that forbade the coins from being sold until a century after his death in 1923 at 71.</p><p>Emotionally impacted by the devastation of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/animated-map-how-wwi-changed-europe-borders-2017-4">World War I</a>, Bruun determined the collection should be kept as backup reserves for <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/i-moved-to-denmark-better-child-care-love-it-2023-12">Denmark</a> should a second war ravage Europe, The Washington Post reported.</p><p>The collection in total is estimated to be worth up to $72 million, making it the most valuable <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/england-gold-coins-found-under-kitchen-floor-sell-for-845000-2022-10">coin collection</a> ever to go to sale, according to Stack's Bowers, the New York rare coin dealer and auction house overseeing the sale.</p><p>The proceeds from the sales will go to Bruun's heirs. At least one of Bruun's descendants was involved in an effort to negotiate a sale of the coins to a museum in Denmark before the required century of waiting was up, but Danish authorities ultimately shut down the sale, citing the businessman's will, The Post reported.</p><p>Bruun began collecting coins as a boy in the 1850s and 1860s, long before he made millions exporting butter to England and other countries, according to The Associated Press. His vast wealth allowed him to continue pursuing his coin hobby in later years. Bruun initially kept his collection at Frederiksborg Castle, the former royal residence located north of Copenhagen, but it was later moved to the Danish Central Bank, per The Post.</p><p>Since 2011, however, the collection has lived in a secret location of which even coin enthusiasts are in the dark.</p><p>"When I first heard about the collection, I was in disbelief," Vicken Yegparian, vice president of numismatics at Stack's Bowers Galleries, told The AP, calling the collection "the best open secret ever."</p><p>The National Museum of Denmark got first dibs on the collection, ultimately snagging seven rare coins, including six gold and one silver, that were minted for $1.1 million, according to the outlet.</p><p>"We chose coins that were unique. They are described in literature as the only existing specimen of this kind," Helle Horsnaes, senior researcher at Denmark's National Museum, told The AP.</p><p>The sales are set to begin this fall and could take anywhere from three to five years, according to Stack's Bowers.</p><p>Some pieces in the collection could go for as cheap as $50, while others could fetch $1 million, Yegparian told The AP.</p>

An ancient coin collection worth $72 million is headed to auction after 100 years of secrecy 

<ul class="summary-list"><li>In the 1930s, teen Helen Carlton-Smith and other female archaeologists excavated a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/anglo-saxon-warrior-prince-tomb-uk-king-tut-2019-5">Roman settlement</a>.</li><li>Tessa Wheeler helped lead the dig and taught the team valuable archaeological skills.</li></ul><p>In the early 1930s, a 13-year-old girl, Helen Carlton-Smith, helped excavate a former <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/modern-obsession-hair-removal-traced-back-to-the-romans-2023-6">Roman settlement</a>. She joined several female archaeologists in finding gold coins and pottery and uncovering mosaics. Until recently, few people knew of her participation.</p><p>Located near what's now Hertfordshire, England, Verulamium <a target="_blank" href="https://www.stalbanshistory.org/category/archaeology/the-roman-city-of-verulamium">was</a> one of Britain's largest <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/archaeologists-discovery-ancient-roman-city-falerii-novi-2020-6">Roman cities</a>. Archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler, then director of the London Museum, was in charge of the excavation. His wife, Tessa Verney Wheeler, was also an archaeologist.</p><p>"In reality, the day-to-day running of the project fell to" Tessa Wheeler, Lexi Diggins, the guest curator of an exhibit at the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.stalbansmuseums.org.uk/whats-on/women-doing-everything-everywhere-all-once">Verulamium Museum</a> on the women who worked at the site, told Business Insider via email.</p><p>Women have been part of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/napoleon-stranded-egypt-savants-birth-modern-archaeology-science">archaeological digs</a> since the 19th century if not earlier, Diggins said. They often "didn't receive the same public acknowledgment as their male colleagues or partners," she said.</p><p>Amateurs like Carlton-Smith were usually overlooked as well.</p><h2>A 13-year-old's diary of a dig</h2><p>Carlton-Smith lived nearby and saw <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/skeleton-is-evidence-of-roman-crucifixion-in-england-researchers-2021-12">archaeologists</a> digging in the park. She was curious enough to ask about their work. That led Tessa Wheeler to ask the teenager if she wanted to help, Diggins said.</p><p>Carlton-Smith's mother was a talented amateur artist, and the Wheelers enlisted her to sketch the mosaics and make drawings of the dig. "Helen inherited her mother's talent and also <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/a-roman-mosaic-is-discovered-in-a-farmers-field-2021-11">traced the mosaics</a>," Diggins said.</p><p>Over the course of a few years, the girl kept a detailed diary of the excavation, Diggins said. The team became so used to Carlton-Smith's presence that Mortimer Wheeler nicknamed her "Helen of Troy."</p><div type="image" title="Four women in dresses excavate an Ancient Roman town" height="1165" width="1271" msid="109227459" hostid="261" sizebytes="106970"></div><p>"Helen became a schoolteacher and had three daughters, all of whom were taught how to draw and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/forgotten-continent-balkanatolia-mammals-fossils-asia-europe-2022-2">record fossils</a>," Diggins said, "and she taught them the importance of the natural world and of being outside and observing everything."</p><p>Carlton-Smith's family kept the trowel she used for excavating, which is part of the exhibit.</p><h2>A network of female archaeologists</h2><p>Carlton-Smith's diary also revealed how Tessa Wheeler helped instruct the men and women working on the excavation. "Her method was to teach by doing," Diggins said.</p><p>In addition to teaching the archaeologists skills like photographing and drawing <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-uncover-ancient-three-dimensional-cave-drawings-2023-9">archaeological features</a>, Tessa Wheeler instructed them on managing similar projects, allocating resources, and training others.</p><p>"To Tessa's credit, many women archaeologists cut their teeth working at the site and then went on to achieve incredible things within the discipline of archaeology," Diggins said.</p><p>Kathleen Kenyon excavated Verulamium's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-secrete-ancient-roman-concrete-mystery-may-be-solved-2023-1">Roman theater</a> and was later appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire because of her archaeological work.</p><div type="image" title="A photo album page with five black-and-white photos from the Verulamium excavation in Britain in the 1930s" height="1500" width="2006" msid="109227460" hostid="261" sizebytes="283342"></div><p>Peggy Piggot Guido turned 21 while working on the Verulamium site. Six years later, she helped excavate a seventh-century ship at Sutton Hoo, as depicted in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/top-movies-on-netflix-this-week-the-dig-below-zero-2021-2">Netflix's "Dig."</a> </p><p>Tessa Wheeler's work was cut short with her death in 1936 at age 43. She had fundraised to open the Verulamium Museum but didn't live to see it, Diggins said.</p><p>"I believe the real heroine of the story is Tessa Wheeler," Diggins said. "Her impact on those she met was impressive and has created ripples of influence and connection right up to today."</p>

A 13-year-old girl helped unearth an ancient Roman town. She's finally getting credit for it over 90 years later.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Groundwater springs belching methane have appeared close to Svalbard's retreating glaciers.</li><li>Scientists think the glaciers acted as plugs to contain methane reserves. </li></ul><p>Hundreds of groundwater springs have appeared in the Arctic, and scientists are worried they are belching vast amounts of ancient methane into the atmosphere. </p><p>The springs were exposed by retreating glaciers in <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-working-in-svalbard-visa-free-arctic-norway-2022-9">Svalbard</a>, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean.</p><p>Researchers at the University of Cambridge believe the methane is millions of years old, seeping out from a large reserve of underground gas. </p><p>This suggests a lot of greenhouse gas could still be released into the atmosphere — something that hasn't been accounted for in existing climate models. </p><h2>The methane seems to come from ancient rock</h2><div type="image" title="Water bubbles with methane as it pierces through a sheet of ice. In the background are snow covered mountains of Svalbard." height="500" width="1000" msid="101579112" hostid="261" sizebytes="36224"></div><p>This isn't the first time scientists have found water spewing methane. In fact, there are lakes in Alaska you can set on fire. These are called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/alaska-lakes-belching-damaging-methane-after-ice-melt-nasa-expert-2022-9?r=US&amp;IR=T">thermokarsts</a> and they appear when permafrost thaws.</p><p>In the case of thermokarsts, however, the methane comes from microbes that grow in the meltwater. Scientists think the methane in the Svalbard springs comes from somewhere else. </p><p>Researchers retrieved water from 123 springs in Svalbard between 2021 and 2022. In 122 of these, they found superconcentrated methane.</p><p>Their analysis suggests this methane comes from reserves of gas spawning from shale rock underlying the glaciers. The findings were <a href="https://affiliate.insider.com?h=5d55b3cac93ea853cba7d29ac434c8e1ff07fb6aa84f32d139facac02e3ead27&amp;postID=64a7e0b87e1bbd2ac665870b&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fnature.com%2Farticles%2Fs41561-023-01210-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">published</a> in Nature Geoscience on Thursday. </p><p>"We have identified this previously unknown methane source up here in the Arctic," Gabrielle Kleber, an Earth scientist at the University of Cambridge and lead author on the study, told Insider.</p><p>There's so much gas in the springs, the scientists were able to set them on fire just with a match:</p><p>"It's shocking, it's scary," said Kleber.</p><p>"We drill into these icings and sometimes we just immediately get a lot of pressurized gas blowing out, very loud, it's a bit ominous," she said. </p><h2>A lot of methane could seep out if the Arctic continues to melt</h2><div type="image" title="Water bursts out of a spring in Svalbard." height="2486" width="3315" msid="101579113" hostid="261" sizebytes="517900"></div><p>The glaciers had been acting as plugs to trap the methane in ancient rock,. As their weight lifted from the bedrock, methane trapped deep in the ground made its way to the surface.</p><p>"We have a very large reservoir of organic carbon that actually is double the size of the current amount of carbon in the atmosphere trapped beneath glaciers and permafrost in the Arctic," said Kleber. </p><p>"If these groundwater springs are tapping into that reservoir, they kind of have an infinite supply of methane behind them. If they can grow in number, grow in size, they can just keep supplying more and more methane to the atmosphere," said Kleber. </p><p>The researchers estimate springs across the archipelago alone could represent about 2,000 tonnes of methane emissions a year.</p><p>As of today, that's a drop in the bucket of global emissions. The global agriculture industry alone released about 141 megatonnes of methane in 2021, according to the <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/global-methane-tracker-2022/estimating-methane-emissions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">International Energy Agency</a>.</p><p>The problem is Svalbard may only be the canary in the coal mine.</p><p>"There are large regions in the Arctic that we suspect are seeing the same phenomenon. So if we extrapolate or expand this across the Arctic, the emissions could be considerable," said Kleber. </p><h2>Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and contributes to a feedback loop</h2><div type="image" title="A researcher is in a cave formed under the ice in the Arctic Svalbard glaciers. The person's shape is cast against the eery blue light filtering through the thin ice." height="1469" width="1958" msid="101579114" hostid="261" sizebytes="55032"></div><p>Methane emissions have been a hot-button issue in the fight against the climate crisis. That's because methane is a greenhouse gas, meaning it keeps heat radiating from the ground trapped in the atmosphere instead of letting the Earth cool down.</p><p>It doesn't get stuck in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide (CO2). But even if it doesn't accumulate for as long, it can cause a lot of damage because it's about 30 times more effective at trapping heat than CO2. </p><p>"Reducing methane emissions is an important tool we can use right now to lessen the impacts of climate change in the near term, and rapidly reduce the rate of warming," Rick Spinrad, the head of NOAA, <a href="https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/increase-in-atmospheric-methane-set-another-record-during-2021#:~:text=Methane%20in%20the%20atmosphere%20is,ruminant%20animals%20such%20as%20cows." target="_blank" rel="noopener">previously said</a>.</p><div type="image" title="A picture shows the view from inside a glacier cave in Svalbard, Norway." height="1500" width="2000" msid="101579115" hostid="261" sizebytes="157020"></div><h2>If confirmed, this could change climate models</h2><p>It's difficult to know how bad this problem could be because the research is very new. </p><p>Climate models are struggling to keep up with the rate of melting of the Arctic, which is surpassing most predictions. Kleber suspects these methane emissions are only one of several "invisible feedback loops that we're just not aware of." </p><p>"This feedback loop of melting glaciers, releasing methane could very likely be a contributor to that discrepancy in our, our large uncertainty in methane emissions, particularly in the Arctic," said Kleber</p><p>More research is needed to confirm the origin of the methane and understand the scale of the problem across the Arctic, she said,</p><p>"Ultimately we need to be addressing our anthropogenic emissions so that we can prevent these kinds of emissions from growing any further to the point where they are a global impact to our methane budget or our methane emissions," said Kleber.</p>

Rapidly retreating Arctic glaciers are triggering the release of ancient methane. Here's why scientists are worried.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists are studying a new threat emerging from melting permafrost: ancient viruses.</li><li>A new study says these pathogens could pose significant risks to modern-day humans.</li></ul><p>As permafrost thaws across the world due to a warming climate, scientists are researching a potential new threat: The emergence of ancient viruses trapped in the frost for tens of thousands of years. </p><p>The authors of <a href="https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1011268">the study</a> — published in PLOS Computational Biology, a peer-reviewed scientific journal — used computer simulations to model how ancient viruses could survive, evolve, and persist in our modern-day communities. This research marks the first "extensive exploration of the ecological risk" these viruses pose, according to the authors.</p><p>Melting permafrost is already revealing organisms that have been trapped beneath the ice for millennia. In a study published last month, scientists said they discovered a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/forty-six-thousand-year-old-worm-found-siberian-permafrost-brought-back-to-life-2023-7">46,000-year-old microscopic worm</a> trapped in Siberian permafrost that was still capable of producing offspring. And earlier this year, a French scientist identified a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-revived-zombie-animals-bugs-viruses-ancient-ice-before-2023-7">48,000-year-old virus</a> in Siberian permafrost that could still infect single-celled organisms. </p><p>In many of the simulations conducted in the study of the ancient viruses, researchers found that they could thrive in modern communities without making a catastrophic impact, but still caused "non-negligible ecological change."</p><p>The simulations found that just 1% of cases resulted in major ecological damage. But within this small percentage, the simulations found that the pathogens would either increase species diversity by 12% or decrease species diversity by 32%, according to the authors.</p><p>That 1% is important, the authors warn, and these low-probability yet catastrophic re-emergence scenarios require further attention. </p><p>"Risk does not emerge solely from the chance of the event occurring, but from the combination of probability and the magnitude of the event's potential effects," the authors wrote. "From that perspective, our results are worrisome, as they point to an actual risk deriving from the rare events where time-traveling invasions produce severe ecological impacts."</p><p>Plus, the pathogens that were most successful in the past are the most likely to successfully re-establish themselves today, according to the researchers. This means the viruses most likely to re-emerge successfully could also be the most likely to pose an ecological risk. </p><p>Experts have been sounding the alarm on melting permafrost for years, identifying it as just one of countless reasons to slow carbon emissions. Not only is the thawing permafrost a sign that <a href="https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-permafrost#:~:text=A%20thawing%20permafrost%20layer%20can,be%20damaged%20as%20permafrost%20thaws.">global climate change</a> is worsening, vast swaths of melting ice also pose a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/01/11/permafrost-melting-arctic/">significant threat to human infrastructure</a>. </p>

Ancient viruses could re-emerge as permafrost melts, posing 'unpredictable threats' to our communities, new study says

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A team of <keyword id="6356001" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="international" source="Orion">international</keyword> archaeologists discovered 16 unground vilca seeds in southern <keyword id="12479525" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="peru" source="Orion">Peru</keyword>.</li><li>According to a new study, the hallucinogenic seeds were added to molle beer and served at feasts.</li></ul><p>Beer laced with hallucinogenic <keyword id="11915064" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="drugs" source="Orion">drugs</keyword> may have helped the rulers of an ancient, pre-Incan empire in South America maintain power for about 400 years, according to new archaeological research.</p><p>The Wari Empire, which spanned across the highlands of modern-day Peru between circa 600 AD and 1000 AD, likely prospered thanks to the political allegiances forged while consuming the hallucinogenic beverage, the study in the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/hallucinogens-alcohol-and-shifting-leadership-strategies-in-the-ancient-peruvian-andes/15030A62A428B74805BADF7DB4137298">Antiquity journal</a> indicates. </p><p>The potent mixture  — a beer-like drink made from the drupes of molle trees and combined with psychotropic seeds — was likely a staple of intimate feasts that helped foster social relationships and reinforced elite positions in the Wari empire, the research said.</p><div type="image" title="An archeologist at the Quilcapampa site in Peru." height="3840" width="5119" msid="88932973" hostid="261"></div><p>"Feasts for millennia were used to cement political control in the Andes," said associate professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto Justin Jennings, who is an author of the study, in an email to Insider.</p><p>"The Wari innovation was to make a special kind of beer that could be linked to Wari statecraft," he added. "One that depended not on the massive festivals that would be recorded later among the <keyword id="12905413" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="inca" source="Orion">Inca</keyword> but instead on statecraft writ small in the form of something that was akin to a long, boozy, and likely quite a delightful dinner party."</p><p>An international team of archaeologists from Peru, Canada, and the US came to this conclusion after excavating a site at Quilcapampa in Southern Peru where they discovered 16 vilca seeds.</p><div type="image" title="A team of international archaeologists excavated a site at Quilcapampa in Peru." height="338" width="451" msid="88932975" hostid="261"></div><p>The study's authors said the seeds, which usually would have been ground into powder and added to molle beer, appear to have been lost while brewing the unique drink.</p><p>Vilca seeds are still (rarely) used as a hallucinogen in ancient South America, per <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/did-hallucinogenic-booze-fuel-politics-ancient-peru">National Geographic, </a>and promote an intense out-of-body experience similar to the ayahuasca drug. "It is a powerful drug when inhaled that's use quickly leads to blackout, vomiting, and visions," said one of the study's authors, Justin Jennings, in an email to Insider. "It's not a social drug."</p><p>But when vilca seeds are combined with molle beer, as the Wari people are believed to have done, Jennings said the drug's impact is weakened and prolonged. "You know where you are and who you are with, but you also know you are not quite in the same place as when the event began," he explained.</p><div type="image" title="A vilca seed discovered at the Quilcapampa site in Peru." height="1080" width="1440" msid="88932977" hostid="261"></div><p>Infusing molle beer made from berries with vilca seeds made for a "smoother, more enduring high" that could be enjoyed "collectively," Jennings said. It created a politically useful sense of "communitas," according to the study.</p><p>These drug-laced beers also allowed Wari leaders to maintain their heightened status by offering a memorable, communal, and — most importantly — unique hallucinatory feast, the research said. The highly prized vilca seeds were likely an import from the southern coast, Jennings explained. </p><p>A question that remains, Jennings told Insider, is why the Wari formula was not replicated by the Incan empire. "The beverage was still drunk on rare occasions in the Andes after, but was replaced by the mass production of maize beer," he said. "The Inca built off of other Wari innovations but chose a different path in regards to feasting, beer, and drugs. Why?"</p>

Psychedelic beer served at intimate dinner parties helped an ancient empire in the Andes rule for centuries, study finds

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Some of the walls of Mohenjo-Daro have been destroyed as a result of Pakistan's historic flooding.</li><li>The <strong>Cultural, Tourism, Antiquities, and Archives Department</strong> of the Sindh province estimated that repairs would cost $45 million.</li></ul><p>A preserved ancient city in Pakistan has witnessed "mass destruction" as a result of the country's historic rains and could cost millions of dollars to repair. <br /><br />Ahsan Abbasi, a curator at Mohenjo Daro, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/floods-pakistan-asia-south-dating-e3ee9f66c3a8e338e5037744e1f1cfa5">told the Associated Press</a> the outer walls of the city had been damaged by the rains.</p><p>The Mohenjo Daro's "Buddhist stupa" — a religious burial ground — survived the rains, however. Repairs to preserve the World Heritage site are now underway, Abbasi told the AP.</p><p>Mohenjo Daro — or Mound of the Dead in Sindhi —is an ancient civilization in the heart of Pakistan that cropped up on the Indus river 4,500 years ago. The ruins of the city are now a UNESCO world heritage site.</p><p>Mojenjo Daro was discovered in the 1920s <a href="https://affiliate.insider.com?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalgeographic.com%2Fhistory%2Farticle%2Fmohenjo-daro">after mysteriously disappearing</a> 4,000 years ago, according to National Geographic. Remnants of the city include bronze statues, pottery and a pool called the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Great-Bath-Mohenjo-daro">Great Bath.</a></p><p>The immaculately planned city, with endless rows of baked brick walls, was considered the "first great urban center" of the Indus Valley civilization and had complex drainage systems to address ancient floods, according to UNESCO. </p><p>The Indus Valley civilization is one of the world's earliest civilizations, lasting between 2500 and 1700 BCE, and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Indus-civilization/Craft-technology-and-artifacts">consisted of over 100 towns and villages</a> along the Indus river in modern-day Pakistan.</p><p>A letter sent to UNESCO by the Cultural, Tourism, Antiquities, and Archives Department of the Sindh province said the Indus Valley civilization site had seen "mass destruction" and requested $45 million for repairs, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/moenjodaro-pakistan-floods-intl-hnk/index.html">according to CNN.</a></p><p>During UN Secretary General António Guterres' visit to the country on Friday, UNESCO responded with $350,000 in funds to help rebuild the site, as well as other destroyed sites across the country. The money will help to address crucial repairs while UNESCO continues to assess the situation, CNN reported.</p><p>The letter also said that various parts of the site and the museum were given to people to take refuge during the monsoon. </p><p>Over the last two months, Pakistan has endured <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pakistani-writer-warns-international-community-following-deadly-floods-2022-9">heavy monsoon rains and glacier melts</a> that have submerged one-third of the country and impacted 33 million Pakistanis. Over 1,100 people have died so far. </p><p>The Sindh province, where Mohenjo Daro is located, has been one of the worst hit by the flooding due to its location near the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/07/asia/pakistan-flood-lake-manchar-swells-intl-hnk/index.html">overflowing Lake Manchar.</a></p>

The 4,500 year old ruins of a once-hidden ancient civilization in Pakistan are being threatened by the country's historic rains

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="11993987" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="ikea" source="Orion">Ikea</keyword>'s quest for timber is harming some of Romania's ancient forests, according to <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/165245/ikea-romania-europe-old-growth-forest">The New Republic</a>.</li><li>Ikea has long touted its positive environmental record and sustainability, and told Insider "under no circumstances does IKEA accept illegally logged wood."</li></ul><p>Activists are blasting furniture giant Ikea for its reported push to buy up Romanian forests in order to access the country's valuable wood resources. Reporting for <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/165245/ikea-romania-europe-old-growth-forest">The New Republic</a>, <a href="https://newrepublic.com/authors/alexander-sammon" title="Alexander Sammon">Alexander Sammon</a> investigated Ikea's reliance on Romanian timber, along with the rampant deforestation and the violent business of illegal logging occurring in the country.</p><p>The Swedish furniture company has long touted its environmental record. The company currently runs a 2030 <a href="https://about.ikea.com/en/newsroom/2021/01/25/ikea-launches-new-2030-forest-agenda-to-push-for-improved-forest-management-and-biodiversity-globally">initiative</a> to promote responsible management, and has called for the protection of endangered species and <a href="https://about.ikea.com/en/sustainability/responsible-sourcing/mikhail-on-trees-timber-and-ambitious-goals">replanting trees</a> to make up for deforestation caused by logging. Ikea also announced plans to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ikea-furniture-waste-wood-eco-friendly-2021-6">reduce its furniture waste</a> in 2020.</p><p>On its <a href="https://www.ikea.com/au/en/people-and-planet/were-big-fans-of-wood-pub7d894da1">website</a>, the company claims to mostly source its wood from "Sweden, Poland, Russia, Lithuania and Germany." But The New Republic reported that the furniture-maker could get up to 10% of its timber from Romania, and that Ikea has become the country's "largest private landowner" and the globe's "largest individual consumer of wood," as it's doubled its wood consumption during the past decade.</p><p>The New Republic reported that Romanian nonprofit Agent Green filed a complaint against Ikea, alleging that they had photographic proof that the company was "clear-cutting without a permit and without an environmental impact assessment in an Ikea-owned old-growth <keyword id="6371230" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="forest" source="Orion">forest</keyword>." </p><p>"Under no circumstances does IKEA accept illegally logged wood," a spokesperson for IKEA of Sweden AB said in a statement to Insider. "We have developed a comprehensive due diligence system with multiple safeguards. This includes strict requirements for documentation of wood origin by our direct suppliers, a global team of wood sourcing and forestry specialist that perform over 200 audits a year, and third-party auditors that control our supply chain with a special focus on high right countries."</p><p>An audit by the Forest Stewardship Council found that Ikea hadn't broke any rules, but Agent Green representatives told the magazine that they doubted the credibility of this finding.</p><p>This isn't Ikea's first brush with controversy around its wood-procurement practices. In 2021, an investigation by London-based environmental group <a href="https://www.earthsight.org.uk/news/press-release-illegal-russian-wood-hidden-inside-ikea-children-furniture">Earthsight</a> found that Ikea had likely been using illegally-obtained Russian wood in its children's furniture for years. In 2012, a joint report from United Nations Environment Programme and INTERPOL found that anywhere from 15% to 30% of "the volume of wood traded globally has been obtained illegally."</p><p>In response to the Earthsight investigation, Ikea told <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/ikea-likely-sold-furniture-linked-illegal-logging-forests-crucial-earth-n1273745">NBC</a> that the company would "no longer accept wood from a number of companies" affiliated with the supplier facing allegations of illegally obtained wood. </p><p>According to The New Republic, Ikea began buying up Romanian forestland in 2015. Sammon also reported that the country has seen up to two-thirds of its virgin forests vanish since 2007. The New Republic used a drone to photograph swaths of Ikea-owned forests that had been cut down, oftentimes adjacent to protected sites. An Ikea spokesperson told Insider that the company has worked "with multiple stakeholders" to "improve forest management and sourcing practices in Romania."</p><p style="font-weight: 400;">"Romania is a country that continues to face certain challenges related to forestry practices and we remain committed to using our presence to further improve the situation," an Ikea spokesperson said in a statement to Insider.</p>

Ikea has come under fire over allegations it's eating up ancient forests in Romania

<ul class="summary-list"><li>In the biblical story of Sodom, God destroys the city and its inhabitants due to their wickedness.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-hit-ancient-middle-eastern-city-inspired-sodom-bible-story-2021-9">A study suggests the tale was inspired by a meteor</a> that wrecked the ancient city of Tall el-Hammam.</li></ul><p>About 3,600 years ago, residents of the city of Tall el-Hammam started their days like any other. A guard likely sat on the parapet atop the local palace.</p><p>Then, to the southwest, an object fell through the sky.</p><p>"All of a sudden, this thing explodes in a sudden burst of light," researcher Malcolm LeCompte told Insider. "The guard's instantly blinded. He's done."</p><p>The heat from the explosion melted the bricks beneath the guard. A shockwave followed, which sheared off the top 40 feet of the palace roof and, presumably, liquefied his insides.</p><p>That explosion, according to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-97778-3">a study</a> LeCompte co-authored last month, was a 165-foot-wide meteor that blew up before hitting the ground, annihilating the city. The blast killed at least 8,000 people and animals.</p><p>"It was essentially a mini-sun," LeCompte said. "And if the heat didn't kill you, the shockwave would've be sufficient to basically tear you apart and turn you into nothing but a bag of bones or goo."</p><p>He and his colleagues think the saga of Tall el-Hammam could have inspired the biblical tale of Sodom. The disaster bears an uncanny resemblance to Moses' account in the book of Genesis, in which he warns against acts of wickedness by describing a city and its sinful people that God destroyed in a firestorm. </p><p>Archaeologists already knew that Tall el-Hammam, located in a valley in present-day Jordan, was suddenly abandoned millennia ago and remained uninhabited for centuries. Yet the reason for its demise remained up for debate - some historians suggested a natural disaster or violent war. But the new research, a culmination of 15 years of excavation, reveals that the city and its residents were subject to extreme temperatures and pressures.</p><p>LeCompte, who researches meteors and their impacts at Elizabeth City State University, said the only thing that can explain it is an extraterrestrial impact.</p><p>"An earthquake couldn't do that," he said.</p><h2>A layer of melted pottery and glass tells a tale of destruction</h2><div type="image" title="Evidence asteroid struck Tall el-Hammam inspiring Sodom story" height="1030" width="1000" msid="87143929" hostid="261"></div><p>Excavations at Tall el-Hammam began in 2005. Archaeologists first uncovered pottery, buildings, and bodies. </p><p>But then they started finding evidence that things had gotten really hot, really fast - like a rock that had melted to black on all sides, remnants of melted pottery and metal, and glass that had liquefied and splattered onto fragments of human bones.</p><p>Glass melts starting at 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Iron and pottery's melting points are even higher.</p><p>"The technology didn't exist at that time, in the Middle Bronze Age, for people to be able to generate fires of that kind of temperature," Sid Mitra, a geologist from East Carolina University who coauthored the study, said in <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/931092">a press release</a>.</p><p>Thinking a <keyword id="11895441" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="space" source="Orion">space</keyword> rock could be the explanation, excavators called in LeCompte and other members of his international <a href="https://cometresearchgroup.org/">Comet Research Group</a> in 2014. </p><div type="image" title="Evidence asteroid struck Tall el-Hammam inspiring Sodom story" height="990" width="1000" msid="87143930" hostid="261"></div><p>Over the next seven years, LeCompte visited the site three times to collect samples. Multiple findings by his team confirmed that a cosmic <keyword id="12346141" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="airburst" source="Orion">airburst</keyword> had happened near the city.</p><p>In a layer of sediment dating back 3,600 years, the group found fractured sand grains - known as shocked quartz - which only form at very high pressures. Those pressures had also converted wood and plants in the city into microscopic <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/677046">diamonoids</a> that are almost indestructible.</p><p>Additionally, the group found dust-like particles called spherules composed of vaporized iron and sand. Spherules form at about 2,900 degrees Fahrenheit.</p><p>The sediment layer also contained platinum, iridium, and osmium - some of the rarest elements on Earth, which often come from <keyword id="12346140" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="meteorites" source="Orion">meteorites</keyword>. </p><h2>People in the area were blinded, deafened, or smushed</h2><div type="image" title="Evidence asteroid struck Tall el-Hammam inspiring Sodom story" height="750" width="1000" msid="87143933" hostid="261"></div><p>Yet another indication that a meteor was responsible is that city buildings, including the palace, all fell toward the northeast.</p><p>"It appears things were destroyed directionally," LeCompte said.</p><p>This suggests the space rock exploded to the southeast of the city, and the resulting shockwave traveled north.</p><p>Meteors that explode in the atmosphere before striking Earth's surface are called bolides. Their cosmic airbursts can be more powerful than a nuclear bomb. The explosion above Tall el-Hammam, LeCompte said, had a yield between 5 and 30 megatons - at least 330 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.</p><p>The air temperature rose to <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-giant-space-rock-demolished-an-ancient-middle-eastern-city-and-everyone-in-it-possibly-inspiring-the-biblical-story-of-sodom-167678">3,600 degrees Fahrenheit</a> (2,000 degrees Celsius). Those who looked at the incoming meteor lost their sight.</p><p>"More than likely, everything that was burnable would've caught fire, like wood and clothes," LeCompte said. "If you were on a hillside looking down into the valley, the sound of the explosion might've broken your ear drums."</p><p>Then came the shockwave, which would have felt like an intense wind barreling in at 740 miles per hour.</p><p>"The shock that would pass through your body would make mush out of your insides," LeCompte said.</p><p>He added that the pressure from the wind would have been 100,000 times what we normally feel. </p><div type="image" title="tunguska event" height="1890" width="3004" msid="87143934" hostid="261"></div>Indeed, in Tall el-Hammam archaeologists unearthed bodies that were missing legs and skulls. Some victims had been blown against the walls of rooms and buried under rubble. Many of the people likely died without knowing what had happened, LeCompte said, incinerated by the blast. <p>The study suggests that the explosion was similar to that of a bolide over Russia more than a century ago. That event resulted in minimal human casualties due to its remote location in Sibera, but destroyed 800 square-miles of forest, knocking down 80 million trees.</p><h2>The impact may have splashed salt from the Dead Sea into the soil</h2><p>In the Sodom story, God leaves nothing alive - wiping out even "that which grew upon the ground." </p><p>The researchers' findings also offer an explanation for that line: They observed a high concentration of salt in the sediment layer, which would have been toxic to crops. </p><div type="image" title="Evidence asteroid struck Tall el-Hammam inspiring Sodom story" height="640" width="1000" msid="87143935" hostid="261"></div><p>If the meteor exploded southwest of Tall el-Hammam, it may have vaporized or splashed water from the nearby Dead Sea into the surrounding soil.</p><p>Historical records show that this area of the Middle East was abandoned for up to 600 years following the disaster - which would have been the only option if salty soil had made agriculture impossible. </p>

A meteor that incinerated the residents of an ancient city inspired the biblical story of Sodom, research suggests

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="6359982" type="LOCATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="earth">Earth</keyword>'s <keyword id="133780" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="magnetic-field">magnetic field</keyword>, which protects it from solar radiation, has a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-magnetic-field-weakening-satellite-problems-2020-5">weak spot</a> that's expanding.</li><li>This weak spot may be caused by pieces of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pieces-planet-theia-buried-in-earth-mantle-2021-4">an ancient planet that hit Earth and sank into the mantle</a>.</li><li>The growing <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-earths-magnetic-north-is-moving-2019-4">"dent" in the magnetic field</a> can cause <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/weak-spot-magnetic-field-growing-could-harm-satellites-2020-8">malfunctions in satellites</a> and spacecraft.</li></ul><p>Earth's suit of geomagnetic armor has a chink, and it's growing.</p><p>A <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-magnetic-field-weakening-satellite-problems-2020-5">weak spot</a> in our planet's magnetic field, located above the southern Atlantic Ocean, has been increasing in size over the last two centuries, and it's starting to split in two.</p><p>For those of us on the ground, this isn't cause for concern: The protective field continues to shield the planet from deadly solar radiation. But the South Atlantic Anomaly, as it's appropriately named, does affect satellites and other spacecraft that pass through an area between South America and southern Africa. That's because higher quantities of charged solar particles seep through the field there, which can cause malfunctions in computers and circuitry.</p><p>The source of this growing "dent," as <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-researchers-track-slowly-splitting-dent-in-earth-s-magnetic-field">NASA calls it</a>, is a bit of a mystery. But scientists expect it to keep expanding.</p><p>"This thing is set to increase in size in the future," Julien Aubert, a geomagnetism expert from the Paris Institute of Earth Physics, told Insider.</p><p>Aubert thinks that the dent may have a connection to two gigantic blobs of dense rock buried 1,800 miles inside the Earth. Because of their makeup, the blobs disturb the liquid metal in the outer core that generates the magnetic field.</p><p>Both blobs are "millions of times larger than Mount Everest in terms of volume," <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pieces-planet-theia-buried-in-earth-mantle-2021-4">according to Qian Yuan</a>, a researcher studying geodynamics at Arizona State University.</p><p><a href="https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2021/pdf/1980.pdf">Yuan's team</a> thinks the blobs are otherworldly in origin: After an ancient, Mars-sized planet careened into Earth, it might have left these pieces behind.</p><h2>Chunks of a 4.5 billion-old-year planet inside Earth</h2><p>Nearly 2,000 miles below Earth's surface, swirling <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/02/magnetic-north-update-navigation-maps/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">iron in the planet's outer core</a> generates a magnetic field that stretches all the way from there to the <keyword id="41531" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="space">space</keyword> surrounding our planet. </p><p>That swirl is generated, in part, by a process in which hotter, lighter material from the core rises into the semi-solid mantle above. There, it swaps places with cooler, denser mantle material, which sinks into the core below. This is known as convection. </p><p>The problem is that something at the boundary between the core and mantle underneath southern Africa is wreaking havoc on that convection, thereby weakening the strength of the magnetic field above it.</p><p>It's plausible, Aubert said, that one of the blobs Yuan's team is investigating is to blame.</p><div type="image" title="theia" height="2400" width="3000" msid="82072553" hostid="261"></div><p>Yuan's research posits that the blobs are remnants of an ancient planet called Theia, which struck Earth in its infancy 4.5 billion years ago. The collision helped create the moon.</p><p>Following that crash, the thinking goes, two parts of Theia may have sunk and gotten preserved in the deepest part of Earth's mantle.</p><p>The animation below, based on a <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LLSVP.gif">2016 analysis</a>, shows the location of these planetary fragments. </p><a title="Sanne.cottaar, CC BY-SA 4.0 &lt;https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commonsommons" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LLSVP.gif"><div type="image" title="LLSVP" height="450" width="512" msid="82072557" hostid="261"></div></a><p>Yuan said these blobs - their technical name is large low-shear-velocity provinces - are between 1.5 and 3.5% denser than the rest of Earth's mantle, and also hotter.</p><p>So when these chunks get involved in convection, they could screw with the regular flow. That, in turn, may lead the iron in the core under southern Africa to swirl in the opposite direction from iron in other parts of the core.</p><p>The orientation of Earth's magnetic field depends on the direction the iron inside is moving. To have a strong magnetic field, the entire thing has to be oriented the same way. So any areas that deviate from the usual pattern weaken the field's overall integrity. </p><div type="image" title="magnetic field" height="320" width="1038" msid="82072559" hostid="261"></div><p>Still, it's possible these low-shear-velocity provinces aren't to blame for the field's weak spot at all.</p><p>"Why doesn't the same weakness occur in the magnetic field above the Pacific, where the other province is?" Christopher Finlay, a geophysicist at the Technical University of Denmark, told Insider. </p><h2>A 'hostile region'</h2><p>A weaker field enables more charged particles from solar wind to reach satellites and other spacecraft in low-Earth orbit. That can cause problems with electronic systems, interrupt data collection, and lead expensive computer components to age prematurely.</p><p>In the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, satellite failures were frequent in the South Atlantic Anomaly, Aubert said.</p><p>Even today, the <a href="https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Swarm/Swarm_probes_weakening_of_Earth_s_magnetic_field">European Space Agency has found</a> that satellites flying through the region are "more likely to experience technical malfunctions," like brief glitches that can disrupt communications. That's why it's common for satellite operators to <a href="https://phys.org/news/2020-08-nasa-track-slowly-dent-earth.html">shut down non-essential components</a> as the objects pass through the area.</p><p>The Hubble Space Telescope, too, passes through the anomaly in 10 of its 15 orbits around Earth each day, spending nearly 15% of its time in this "hostile region," <a href="https://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/q525.html">according to NASA</a>.</p><div type="image" title="hubble telescope" height="680" width="1024" msid="82072561" hostid="261"></div><h2>The weak spot is getting weaker</h2><p>Researchers use a set of three satellites, collectively nicknamed Swarm, to keep tabs on the South Atlantic Anomaly.</p><p>Some studies suggest the region's total area has <a href="https://www.earth-prints.org/bitstream/2122/9857/1/ADS_Toward_a%20geomagnetic%20transition_nhess_2013.pdf">quadrupled</a> in the last 200 years, and that it <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2016.00040/full#B7">continues to expand</a> year over year. The anomaly has also weakened by 8% since 1970.</p><p>In the last decade, Swarm also observed that the anomaly has split in half<a href="https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Swarm/Swarm_probes_weakening_of_Earth_s_magnetic_field"></a>: One area of magnetic weakness has developed over the ocean southwest of Africa, while another sits east of South America. </p><div type="image" title="SAA_2020" height="430" width="700" msid="82072562" hostid="261"></div><p>This is bad <keyword id="6355005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news">news</keyword>, according to Finlay, because it means the hostile region for spacecraft is going to get bigger.</p><p>"Satellites will have problems not only over South America but be impacted when they're coming over southern Africa as well," he said.</p>

Remnants of an ancient planet buried inside the Earth may be the cause of a weak spot in the magnetic field

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Diggers in England unearthed two 4,500-year-old <keyword id="97521" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Graves">graves</keyword> near <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/man-returns-piece-of-stonehenge-he-took-in-1958-then-kept-at-home-2019-5">Stonehenge</a>.</li><li>Archaeologists are surveying the area before a car tunnel gets built under the 5,000-year-old monument.</li><li>The graves contained remains of a young woman and a baby.</li></ul><p>British archaeologists have found two ancient graves near <keyword id="55281" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="stonehenge">Stonehenge</keyword>.</p><p>The discovery was the result of a survey of a 2-mile-long area just south of the monument. It's a required step before a new highway tunnel can be constructed under Stonehenge; government officials approved the tunnel last year but stipulated that the land must first be searched for artifacts.</p><p>The surveyors found the grave of a young woman and another with bones from a baby about a mile southwest of the monument. Both graves date back roughly 4,500 years, which is roughly the age of the bluestones that make up Stonehenge's inner circle.</p><p>According to Matt Leivers, an archaeologist with Wessex <keyword id="6360337" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="archaeology">Archaeology</keyword> who is helping to survey the area, the woman and baby were likely related to the people who erected the monument.</p><p>"The later arrangements of bluestones would have been built around the time these people lived and died - if they weren't the builders then they might have been their relatives, or perhaps their children or grandchildren," he told Insider.</p><h2>The land around Stonehenge has yielded graves, pottery, and animal bones</h2><div type="image" title="Beaker burial" height="2988" width="3984" msid="80889707" hostid="261"></div><p>The baby's grave contained tiny ear bones, while the young woman's skeleton suggests she died in her 20s or 30s. According to Leivers, both individuals were part of the Beaker culture, a group of people who lived in Europe between about 4,000 and 5,000 years ago.</p><p>The Beaker people are named after the pottery vessels they were typically buried with, which serve as markers of their identity, Leivers said. The infant was buried near a plain beaker, the woman was curled around an ornate one. </p><p>The woman's grave also contained an object made from shale, pictured below.</p><p>"It may have been a ceremonial cup purposefully damaged before it was laid in the grave, or it may be the cap off the end of a staff or club," Leivers <a href="https://www.wessexarch.co.uk/news/a303-stonehenge-evaluation-works-uncover-glimpses-prehistoric-life">said in a press release</a>.</p><p><em><div type="image" title="A cylindrical shale object from a Beaker burial.JPG" height="1376" width="1834" msid="80889708" hostid="261"></div></em></p><p>In addition to the two graves, the archaeologists unearthed two pots filled with cremated remains in the land surrounding Stonehenge. They also found pottery fragments, animal bones, and used flints.</p><p>To the southeast of the monument, they found ditches that might have been part of a 2,500-year-old <a href="https://www.livescience.com/amp/stonehenge-graves-enclosure-discovered-tunnel-construction.html">Iron Age fort</a>, as well as other older ditches from the late Bronze Age, 3,500 years ago.</p><h2>An 18-month survey of the area is about to start</h2><p>Stonehenge sits on England's Salisbury Plain. The land near the monument is empty of buildings, but one of the main roads from London to southwestern England, A303, passes right by it. The new tunnel is meant to eliminate the sounds, smells, and sights of that road traffic.</p><p>The project is slated to cost <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-stonehenge-idUKKBN27S1Z0#:~:text=LONDON%20(Reuters)%20%2D%20Britain%20has,of%20stones%20in%20southern%20England.">£1.7 billion</a> ($2.4 billion US), with construction starting in 2023. But first, Wessex archaeologists are hunting for anything buried near the tunnel's proposed location.</p><div type="image" title="Late Bronze Age vessel being excavated south of Longbarrow Crossroads on the A303.JPG" height="2663" width="3550" msid="80889709" hostid="261"></div><p>The full survey of the area hasn't begun in earnest yet; it's slated to start this spring, with between 100 and 150 archaeologists, and <a href="https://www.wessexarch.co.uk/news/a303-stonehenge-evaluation-works-uncover-glimpses-prehistoric-life">last 18 months</a>. The Beaker graves are among the very first findings.</p><p>"It is very unlikely, almost impossible, that we'll find anything that would stop the road now," Leivers said. The goal is to find a route for the road and tunnel that "avoids as much archaeology as possible," he added.</p><p>"It's only where the road enters into and exits from the tunnels, and along the approach roads and new junctions that the archaeology will be impacted," he explained, since most artifacts and graves are found near the surface, whereas the tunnel will be bored much deeper.</p><h2>Stonehenge was like 'Washington DC with a big dollop of religion'</h2><h2><div type="image" title="stonehenge" height="1566" width="2089" msid="80889710" hostid="261"></div></h2><p>Stonehenge was built in two waves of flurried construction 5,000 and 4,500 years ago. Archaeologists have determined that some of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stonehenge-mystery-origin-of-boulders-solved-2020-7">the monument's stones came</a> from Wales, and others from a woodland area nearby. But Stonehenge's purpose is still a mystery.</p><p>David Nash, an archaeologist at the University of Oxford, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stonehenge-mystery-origin-of-boulders-solved-2020-7">previously told Insider</a> that it might have been a ground for <keyword id="2405785" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="burials">burials</keyword> and cremation, or perhaps a place of ancient healing. Leivers, meanwhile, thinks Stonehenge was the ceremonial center of southern England, a place of spiritual and political power.</p><p>"Think of Washington DC with a big dollop of religion," he said.</p><p>That's likely why the Beaker people wanted to be buried there, Leivers added: "By the Beaker period, it had been a place of importance for many many centuries and its fame meant that people wanted to visit it."</p>

Archaeologists discovered 2 ancient graves near Stonehenge, containing bones of a young woman and baby

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mars-landing-nasa-perseverance-rover-touches-down-in-jezero-crater-2021-2">NASA's Perseverance rover</a> landed in <keyword id="47638" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Mars">Mars</keyword>' Jezero Crater on Thursday.</li><li>The dried-up lake bed is the ideal spot to look for alien fossils because a river deposited microbe-trapping minerals there.</li><li>Perseverance will search the lake bottom, shorelines, and river delta for signs of ancient microbes.</li></ul><p>On Thursday, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mars-landing-nasa-perseverance-rover-touches-down-in-jezero-crater-2021-2">NASA landed its most sophisticated rover yet</a> in an ancient Martian lake bed.</p><p>Billions of years ago, Mars was a water world with rivers and lakes. Microbes might have swum in those waters, leaving their imprints behind. on an ancient lake bed called Jezero Crater.</p><p>The Perseverance rover is now perfectly poised to hunt for such fossils. After a harrowing plunge to Mars, the $2.4 billion, SUV-sized robot sent a signal to <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword> mission controllers confirming that it had safely touched down in the planet's Jezero Crater.</p><p>More than 3.5 billion years ago, rivers spilled over the edge of that 28-mile-wide crater, into an alien body of water about the size of Lake Tahoe. The rivers probably carried clay minerals into Lake Jezero, and if microbes lived in the water, they could have gotten trapped. That would mean that today, there may be fossil rocks called <keyword id="2526951" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="stromatolites">stromatolites</keyword> at the bottom of the lake bed, along what used to be the shoreline, or in the dried-up river delta.</p><p>This makes Jezero Crater one of the best places in our solar system to search for evidence of <keyword id="582933" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Alien-life">alien life</keyword>.</p><p>On Earth, the oldest signs of life are 3.5 billion-year-old stromatolites found in ancient shallow lake beds - exactly what Perseverance will look for on Mars.</p><div type="image" title="jezero crater mars lake water illustration" height="1519" width="2700" msid="80887597" hostid="261"></div><p>"This is a tantalizing similarity," Ken Farley, the project scientist for Perseverance, said in a press briefing before the landing. "It would, of course, be a fabulous scientific discovery to find that life existed beyond Earth."</p><p>Perseverance is designed to scour Jezero Crater, collect about 40 samples that could contain signs of ancient microbes, and store them in special tubes so that a future mission can bring them to Earth.</p><p>NASA had considered the crater as a destination for previous missions, but its steep cliffs, sand dunes, and boulder fields made it a dangerous place to land. New technologies equipped Perseverance to take on the treacherous terrain.</p><h2>A journey from the lake bottom to the crater rim</h2><p>Perseverance landed, as planned, near the cliffs of the fan-shaped river delta - a deposit of mud and clay that the river left as it flowed into the lake.</p><div type="image" title="jezero crater river delta mars perseverance rover landing site" height="1500" width="2000" msid="80887602" hostid="261"></div><p>In the past, it would take mission controllers a few days to figure out where a rover landed, but Perseverance's sophisticated navigation system pinpointed its location. In fact, it picked its own landing spot by analyzing maps of Jezero Crater and steering away from boulder fields, sand dunes, and cliffs on its way down.</p><p>Perseverance ended up about a mile (two kilometers) southeast of the river delta, in a small, flat area. In the map of that landing site below, red indicates a landing hazard.</p><div type="image" title="perseverance mars rover landing spot site hazard map jezero crater" height="1000" width="2000" msid="81114489" hostid="261"></div><p>"You can see that the system managed to find a nice blue spot in the midst of all that red, all that death that's out there for us. So we found the parking lot and and hit it," Al Chen, who led the rover's entry, descent, and landing, said in a press briefing on Thursday.</p><p>Now the rover is set to explore the muddy lake bottom for fossils before climbing to the delta.</p><p>From there, NASA has carved out a few potential routes for Perseverance that would expose it to the diversified landscape of Jezero Crater. The one shown below is about 15 miles long.</p><div type="image" title="perseverance mars rover path nasa jezero crate" height="1414" width="2600" msid="80887599" hostid="261"></div><p>"This is a pathway that connects together all of the different habitable environments that we think existed within this lake and in its surroundings," Farley said. "This is a long traverse. It'll take many years for us to do this. The reason we do this, though, is that this will allow us to come up with the best possible set of samples to be brought back to Earth, to answer the major questions that we have about Mars and about life."</p><p>In the image below, the layer of green between the delta and the crater rim is where scientists think Lake Jezero's shoreline was. It appears to be rich with carbonates: minerals that are especially good at trapping microbes to form stromatolites.</p><div type="image" title="nasa mars 2020 rover landing site jezero crater" height="1495" width="1865" msid="80887603" hostid="261"></div><p>The rover's primary mission is to look for signs of life, and it lasts one Martian year (two Earth years). If the robot is still kicking when that's over, its extended mission will involve climbing the 1,600-foot rim of the crater.</p><p>Jezero Crater was most likely created when an object (probably a meteorite) collided with Mars. The crash exposed rock layers deep within the planet's crust. So at the crater rim, Perseverance aims to study these layers to learn more about Martian geology.</p><div type="image" title="perseverance mars rover jezero crater" height="1519" width="2700" msid="80887606" hostid="261"></div><p>The heat from that impact may have even given rise to hot springs, which could have deposited their own minerals that might also hold signs of aliens.</p><p>"That's why we're so excited about Jezero Crater, because it has so many different ways that it could preserve signs of life," Briony Horgan, a geologist on the Perseverance <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> team, said in the pre-landing briefing.</p><p>Even if Perseverance finds no fossils, that will be a major nonfinding. To date, every habitable environment on Earth that scientists have examined has hosted life.</p><p>"If we do a deep exploration of Jezero Crater with the rover and its instruments ... and we find no evidence of life, we will have shown that in at least one place, there is a habitable environment that is not inhabited," Farley said. "If that's what we find, it would tell us something important: that habitability alone is not sufficient, that something else has to be present - some, perhaps, magic spark - that causes life to occur."</p><p><em>This post has been updated. It was originally published on Feburary 12, 2021.</em></p>

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