There's a 'doomsday' vault buried in the Arctic to protect Earth in apocalyptic event
Taking doomsday prepped to a whole new level.
Featured Image Credit: NordGen
Straight out of a sci-fi tale, a 'doomsday' vault is now open for the public to have a look around.
The vault is co-owned by the Norwegian government, and lies on a mountainside on Spitsbergen, in Norway's Svalbard archipelago, so it's pretty remote to say the least.
But don't worry if you can't make the journey, as a virtual tour of inside the building has been released, and it's pretty mysterious.
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Formally known as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the facility contains a whopping 1,214,827 seed samples from countries all over the world, and it's so vast it's said to have space for millions more.
According to the non-profit Crop Trust, the aim of the vault is to 'safeguard as much of the world’s unique crop genetic material as possible,' such as protecting different crop species from being permanently wiped out after events like natural catastrophes or war.
Although it's been getting a lot of attention on social media recently, it first opened back in 2008, after the Aleppo seed bank was destroyed in the Syrian civil war.
The vault accepts new deposits three times a year, and as climate change threatens different plant species, it's going to become more vital than ever in the coming years.
The vault is closed to the public, which has often led it to be the centre of various doomsday conspiracy theories with people wondering what really might be down there.
And it does look pretty mysterious, with the entrance sticking out before a series of metal doors hide away the samples.
But now, you can stop wondering and actually take a look inside, after a virtual tour that takes you inside the vault has been made available.
After starting down a long tunnel, the tour eventually takes you to the three seed chambers, each storing nearly 3,000 seed boxes which are sealed in an aluminum airtight bag and organized by country.
You can then click on each country and learn more about its agriculture.
The vault is designed to last forever, keeping the seeds safe by burying them so deep in the permafrost - but even Svalbard isn't immune to the changes in weather.
Back in 2017, the entrance to the vault was flooded after a heatwave melted surrounding ice, but luckily the seeds weren't affected by it.
However, to take precaution, samples are replaced every few decades.
And just to paint a picture of how cold it really is up there, if the air con - currently set at -18C - ever did fail, it would reportedly take hundreds of years for the temperature inside to rise above zero.