Way to Go! - Aussies Lose Whole Island

Where did it go? Scientists 'undiscover' Pacific island

Most explorers dream of discovering uncharted territory, but a team of Australian scientists have done the exact opposite.

They have found an island that doesn't exist. The island, named Sandy Island on Google Earth, also exists on marine charts and world maps and allegedly sits between Australia and New Caledonia in the south Pacific.

But when the voyage's chief scientist, Maria Seton, and her crew sailed past where the island should be, they found nothing but blue ocean.

"We became suspicious when the navigation charts used by the ship showed a depth of 1400 metres in an area where our scientific maps and Google Earth showed the existence of a large island," Dr Maria Seton, a geologist from the University of Sydney, said. "Somehow this error has propagated through to the world coastline database from which a lot of maps are made."

The missing island has regularly appeared in scientific publications since at least 2000. "Even onboard the ship, the weather maps the captain had showed an island in this location," Dr Seton said.

Calling Capt. Nemo...