If you’re at Machu Picchu this week and you hear the whir of chopper blades in the distance, rest assured it’s for a worthy cause. All this week a team of scientists from the University of Sydney have special permission to criss-cross a 12,350-acre area around the Inca sanctuary to scan through the thick jungle vegetation with LiDAR for hidden ruins. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
“With these fly-overs and this modern technology we can unravel the mysteries that Machu Picchu still holds,” Daniel Marav\u00ad Vega, director of Cusco\u2019s regional Culture Directorate, told Correo<\/a> newspaper today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The LiDAR \u2014 light detection and ranging data \u2014 will fire billions of laser pulses from the helicopter. When successful, the technology effectively peels away the dense jungle canopy and constructs a digital 3D picture of what once lay beneath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n