A new radar instrument, called the Global Ice Sheet Mapping Orbiter (gismo) has enabled scientists to see through more than a mile of Greenland ice. The radar revealed an image of land that has been hidden for millions of years, said Ohio State University scientists, while revealing the radar's first test image at the recent annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. They plan to take new images in April 2007.

gismo has helped the scientists to acquire the first three-dimensional image of the ground. Earlier, scientists who wanted to study Greenland's ground profile from an aircraft could only acquire two-dimensional images.