Fecks posted this in the daytime. Thought I would show it at night.




The Door to Hell, as local residents at the nearby town of
Darvaza have dubbed it, is a 70 meter wide crater in Turkmenistan that has been
burning continuously for 35 years. In 1971, geologists drilling for gas deposits
uncovered a huge underground cavern, which caused the ground over it to
collapse, taking down all their equipment and their camp with it. Since the
cavern was filled poisonous gas, they dared not go down to retrieve their
equipment, and to prevent the gas escaping they ignited it, hoping it would burn
itself out in a couple of days. Unfortunately, there was a slight miscalculation
as to the amount of gas that was trapped, and the crater continues to burn to
this day.

You can see it on Google Earth at 40°15′8″N 58°26′23″E