Curious places in Turkmenistan
6 articles, each fact-checked and tied to a spot you can stand on.
Bronze objects spanning 1,000 years from one site. Tin content gradually increases, documenting the trial-and-error discovery of optimal bronze composition.
Stand in the dust of a river that vanished, a waterway that once connected Central Asia's great Amu Darya to the Caspian Sea.
Scientists rappelled into the 'Door to Hell' and found bacteria thriving at temperatures exceeding 1000°C. Life in conditions previously thought impossible.
Microbes found living in the flames suggest that life could survive on planets previously dismissed as too hot. Rewriting the 'habitable zone' around stars.
In 1971, Soviet engineers drilling for oil punched into a cavern filled with natural gas. Fearing toxic fumes, they set it on fire expecting it to burn out in weeks. Over 50 years later, the 70-meter-wide crater still blazes in the desert.
Remains of a 2,000-year-old water clock with calibrated chambers. Flow calculations show it could measure time to within 2-minute accuracy over 24 hours.
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