Stalin's march toward a more modern USSR flooded a monastery, leaving a unique and extravagant nautical marker, "The Flooded Belfry."

An impressive collection of massive radio satellites.

This public observatory is home to the "celestial cannon," the longest pointable telescope in the world.

One of the few places of its kind, this space research center sits deep in the countryside of Matera.

Enormous array of antennae fill a desert valley.

The headquarters of one of Japan’s leading astronomy research institutions features several historic observatory facilities and a 2,000-year-old burial mound.

Where the embers of the Big Bang were first detected.

One of the world's most advanced radio observatories sprawls across the Atacama Desert.

This impressively complicated radioastronomy research center was once a tool of Soviet spies.

This giant radio telescope would be a rusting ruin if it hadn't become such a beloved relic.

The nerve center of a massive, state-of-the art radio telescope that sprawls across Western Europe.

The largest radio telescope in the world searches for extraterrestrial life from the remote limestone peaks of southern China.

The world's second largest single-dish radio telescope, once used to contact E.T.

This giant dish located in a sheep paddock was the primary receiver of Apollo 11 TV transmissions.

A radio telescope for listening to the stars, based in one of the cloudiest countries in the world.

This Minnesota-shaped forest is actually located in the state it is shaped like.

This groundbreaking 16th-century map is known as "America's birth certificate."

A detached cement mixer has been transformed to resemble a relic from some obscure NASA mission to Oklahoma.

The beautiful baroque library of the Hapsburg empire.

A map store filled with original Cold War era Russian maps of the world.

This collection features more than 240 antiquarian maps from around the world, in addition to historical views and plates focusing on North Florida.

Over 50 exquisite hand-painted Renaissance maps decorate a Medici storage room.

Breathtaking and huge 430 year old maps of Italy.

Housing the groundbreaking maps and globes of Gerard Mercator.