It turns out, there is a door to hell, right here on planet Earth. Specifically, in Turkmenistan.

Seriously, that picture does not fully represent how hellish the thing is, although it does give you a sense of the size of it. I urge you to take a look at this quick video (34 seconds):

The saddest thing about this place is that it is actually man-made. It turns out that geologists discovered the crater about 35 years ago. It was full of natural gas, so, naturally, they lit it on fire. (Were these geologists or teenage boys?) Nobody expected the gas deposit to be more or less unlimited, and it has burned ever since.

Am I crazy that I kind of want to see it, even though it looks so nightmarish? It doesn’t seem like something you’d soon forget.

Link via Sara.