* Astronomy

A Soviet missile base in Germany that spy planes never saw

It was top-secret in 1959 and remains almost completely unknown to this day - the first Soviet nuclear missile base outside the USSR. But it is still there, crumbling and steadily being reclaimed by nature in the forests north of Berlin.
It is still the hardest place to find. A glade down an overgrown path which seems like any other clearing in the endless woods of Brandenburg. But on its floor, there is a strip of concrete half the size of a tennis court, with a metal plate in the middle.
This is the launch-pad for a nuclear attack on Western Europe. Soviet nuclear missiles 20 times more powerful than Hiroshima were set up here, primed to be fired at targets including London and nuclear bases in eastern England.
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