Long before we had satellites beaming terabytes of data back to Earth, we had covert spacecraft the size of school buses snapping photos on rolls of film 50 kilometers long.
Cold War
Podcast: Paradise Lost
Nuclear bomb tests conducted during the Cold War turned an idyllic tropical isle into a radioactive ship graveyard.
Bikini Seafloor Hides Evidence of Nuclear Explosions
Seafloor mapping has revealed a crater and several shipwrecks persisting 73 years after the world’s first underwater nuclear test.
Spy Satellite Reveals Accelerated Pace of Himalayan Glacier Melt
Images taken covertly in the 1970s have taken on a new purpose in a recent glaciology study.
Podcast: How the Cold War Drove Atmospheric Science
In the first episode of a special series, AGU’s Third Pod from the Sun traces a path from nuclear fallout detectors to modern-day meteorology instruments.
Melting Ice Could Reveal Toxic Cold War Era Waste in Greenland
Unforeseen political disputes could arise as countries assess who's responsible for the cleanup of the Cold War relics.