A lifelong mystery has been solved
Scientists have officially been able to identify Earth’s eighth continent that has been missing.
As we all know, the seven continents we are familiar with are: Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa, Australia and Antarctica.
There is actually an eighth continent however, which was first discovered in 1642, but has taken scientists over 300 years to find it.
Zealandia is the smallest continent on Earth at around five million square kilometres (about 1.9 million square miles), which is roughly half the size of Europe.
Your best chance to visit it is by heading down under to New Zealand however you wouldn’t be able to see much given that 95 per cent of it is underwater.
New Zealand research institute GNS Science announced the discovery of Zealandia, which was once believed to be a part of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana before it broke away for reasons that remain unknown.
As Zealandia began to pull away it then started to sink, resulting in much of it going underwater and never resurfacing.
Some have claimed that since Zealandia is underwater it can’t be classed as a continent however Nick Mortimer of GNS Science told Insider that the definition of a continent doesn’t have to be all about how much of it is above sea level.
He and his team produced a paper after studying the eighth continent for 20 years and finally mapped out the location of the submerged continent.
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