Hello everyone on Steemit, today in the #celestialchallenge initiated by @sirknight, I present my publication on this surprising natural wonder.

Darvaza Crater

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Its name is good or the crater of Darvaza, but many prefer to call it by its nickname, with more commercialization: "Door to hell", and is nothing but a large crater in the middle of the desert in which the fire burns for almost 50 years.

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The crater is in the Karakum desert, near the small village of Darvaza, in Turkmenistan. This desert, which occupies 70% of the country -about 350,000 km²-, is very rich in oil and natural gas, and in 1971, during gas exploration and exploration works by Soviet geologists, the earth suddenly opened, and swallowed-literally-the stores and the teams of the workers.

They had run into an underground cave full of gases, dangerous to health. Then, before letting these gases escape into the atmosphere, it was decided to set fire to the crater to be consumed, under the assumption that the fire would not last more than a few days.
However, today, 46 years later, the crater, which is 69 meters in diameter and 30 meters deep, is still burning, and the temperatures inside are approaching 1,000 ° C.

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Although it is said that there were some attempts to put out the fire, they were unsuccessful, and since 1971 the Darvaza crater burns without stopping, providing an impressive spectacle -especially at night- in the middle of the desert, which attracts many curious people to these Inhospitable lands of Central Asia. And it is unknown how many more years the flames of "Door to Hell" will continue to burn.

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For more information, check his blog:

https://steemit.com/celestialchallenge/@sirknight/sirknight-s-daily-celestial-challenge-new-for-all-steemians
Note: @sirknight started a contest and its daily topics are:
Sunday - light.
Monday - darkness.
Tuesday - animal kingdom.
Wednesday - Structures.
Thursday – ForcesinNature.
Friday - LoveBeautyFreedom.
Saturday - Agriculture.