A Latvian astronomer and his wife drove 190 miles to a secret Soviet ghost town in 1994; found a 600-ton telescope the Russians had poured acid on - adapted the Cold War machine built to spy on the West and listen to the stars

When the Soviet Union had disintegrated, and Russian troops were finally leaving Latvia in 1994, much of the country’s hidden military infrastructure was suddenly exposed. Secret maps surfaced. Abandoned bases were opened. And in the middle of a vast pine forest near the Baltic Sea, one Latvian astronomer followed a rumor that had survived decades of secrecy.

Juris Zhagars and his wife, Gundega, climbed into their orange Lada in Riga and drove roughly 300 kilometers to Irbene, a former Soviet military outpost that had been home to about 2,000 soldiers, scientists and intelligence personnel.