IN the modern age, it’s hard to imagine that there’s anywhere on Earth that we haven’t fully explored.
But there are surprisingly large chunks of Earth that civilisation has yet to fully probe.
North Sentinel Island is one of around 200 islands in the Andaman archipelago[/caption]
Previous visitors to North Sentinel Island have been killed – and it’s now a highly protected area[/caption]
So if you’re looking for a career in exploration, you’re not out of luck yet.
Here are some alien parts of Earth that are still waiting to be explored.
North Sentinel Island
In the Bay of Bengal is the Andaman Islands chain.
And it’s home to North Sentinel Island, a mysterious and unexplored place where visits are banned – a rule enforced by the patrolling Indian Navy.
While the island hasn’t been “explored” in a scientific sense, it is home to humans.
Specifically the isolated Sentinelese, an indigenous tribe that has previously attacked approaching vessels and helicopters with arrows.
Two fisherman were killed by the tribe in 2006 after this boat drifted ashore, and an American missionary who tried to make contact was murdered in 2018.
It’s now considered to be a protected area of India to guard the tribe against the outside world.
So even though it’s a tiny island at just five miles long and just over four miles wide, visitors simply can’t go exploring. Not only is it banned, it’s outright deadly.
Gangkhar Puensum mountain
The Gangkhar Puensum mountain is Bhutan’s highest peak, rising a dizzying 24,836 feet above sea level.
And it’s the highest unclimbed mountain on Earth.
There have been several summit attempts, but they’ve all failed.
Now it’s not even legal to climb out of respect for spiritual beliefs.
In 1994, Bhutan banned anyone from climbing peaks higher than about 19,500 feet.
Gangkhar Puensum, which is in Bhutan, is the highest unclimbed peak in the world[/caption]
And then in 2003, Bhutan put a block on all mountaineering in the country.
So it’s unlikely that Gangkhar Puensum will be explored any time soon.
Mariana Trench
From the top of the world to the bottom…the Mariana Trench is the deepest part of the ocean.
It’s an enormous scar that tears across the floor of the western Pacific Ocean for 1,580 miles.
This render depicts the Mariana Trench, which is the deepest part of the ocean, with areas so deep that no sunlight can ever reach it[/caption]
The 43-mile-wide trench’s lowest point is a small valley called the Challenger Deep.
Scientists believe that it’s around 35,827 feet below sea level.
By contrast, Mount Everest only climbs 29,031 feet.
Parts of the Mariana Trench have been explored, including a famous solo descent by Canadian film director James Cameron in 2012 – who made it to the bottom of the Challenger Deep in a submersible.
Hollywood legend James Cameron emerges completed a successful solo dive to the deepest part of the ocean in 2012 in the Deepsea Challenger submersible[/caption]
HOW DEEP IS THE OCEAN?
Here's the official answer from the USA's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration…
“The average depth of the ocean is about 3,682 meters (12,080 feet),” the NOAA explained.
“The deepest part of the ocean is called the Challenger Deep and is located beneath the western Pacific Ocean in the southern end of the Mariana Trench.
“Which runs several hundred kilometers southwest of the U.S. territorial island of Guam.
“Challenger Deep is approximately 10,935 meters (35,876 feet) deep.
“It is named after the HMS Challenger, whose crew first sounded the depths of the trench in 1875.”
Picture Credit: Pacific Ring of Fire 2004 Expedition. NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration; Dr. Bob Embley, NOAA PMEL, Chief Scientist.
But the Mariana Trench is so huge, difficult to reach, dark and dangerous that there are still vast unexplored areas.
Star Mountains, Papua New Guinea
The Star Mountains are in Papua New Guinea, a nation known for being poorly explored.
In fact scientists think there are lots of planets and animals still waiting to be discovered there.
The problem for explorers is that Papua New Guinea is very remote and mountainous – making it difficult to navigate.
Papua New Guinea’s interior is extremely difficult to reach – including the Star Mountains, which remain largely unexplored[/caption]
It’s believed that there are many animals and plants in Papua New Guinea that are still unknown to science[/caption]
And the Star Mountains are the perfect example of a hard-to-reach part of Papua New Guinea.
The mountain range lies at the western end of the country and, although humans have visited, the vast area is still mostly unexplored.
Northern Greenland Ice Sheet
Northern Greenland is an extremely remote part of the world – mostly because it’s within the Arctic Circle.
It’s extremely cold and dark, and is made up of glaciers, ice sheet, and mountains.
Huge parts of Greenland are covered by an enormous ice sheet[/caption]
So travelling across the northern part of this vast country is very difficult.
In fact, the northern parts of Greenland are covered by an enormous ice sheet.
So not only does this make exploration tough, but it also conceals whatever is beneath the ice sheet.
Parts of northern Greenland have been explored, but in a very limited way.
Parts of Amazon rainforest (Vale do Javari)
The Amazon rainforest is absolutely, staggeringly, incomprehensibly enormous.
It spans eight countries, is about 28 times bigger than the UK, and is home to around 400 tribes.
And as many as 100 of the tribes in Brazil‘s vast rainforest are uncontacted.
The rainforest is difficult to traverse, with huge areas untouched by civilisation.
The Amazon Rainforest is an enormous area of land that is 1,200 miles across at its widest point[/caption]
Most famous for being unexplored is the Vale do Javari, which is where several uncontacted indigenous tribes live (believed to total around 2,000 people).
It has dense canopies that hide the terrain below, and physically getting there is extremely tough.
The area is bigger than Austria, and it’s highly protected.
In fact Brazil has banned non-indigenous people from entering the area to protect the tribes who live there.
It’s an enormous area that scientists still know very little about – and that likely won’t change soon.
Of course there are plenty more unexplored areas of the world.
Deep parts of the sea, caves we haven’t yet mapped out, and hard-to-reach parts of the Himalayas still evade us.
So there’s still a chance for budding explorers to make the history books.
