It's the closest you'll get to visiting another planet. Antarctica is the last vast wilderness on the planet. Its gigantic icebergs, mountain ranges and the emptiness of the polar plateau boggle the mind, while its weather curdles the blood. It's beautiful and serene, savage and violent, and its scale is almost unfathomable.
View Antarctica. Video hosted on Google. Tourists do not visit Antarctica during winter, when the pack ice extends its frozen mantle for 1000km (621mi) around most of the continent, barricading it against all ship traffic. In any case, few people would pay thousands of dollars to experience the Antarctic winter's near round-the-clock darkness and extreme cold. At that temperature, boiling water thrown into the air freezes instantly - and noisily - into a cloud of snow.
The Antarctic tour season is short - about four months, with each offering its own highlights. November is early summer: the spring pack ice is breaking up, and birds - especially penguins - are courting and mating. December and January, when penguins are hatching eggs and feeding chicks, are the height of the austral summer, bringing warmer temperatures and up to 20 hours of sunlight every day. In the late summer month of February, whale-watching is best, penguin chicks are beginning to fledge and adult penguins are ashore molting.
There are other factors to consider in deciding when to travel: cruises later in the season may be less crowded, so you may not spend as much time waiting around for Zodiacs (motorised dinghies) and station tours. However, the longer you wait to go, the greater the risk that much of the wildlife will already have headed out to sea. For those wishing to see Ross Island's historic huts, your best bet is to go as late in the season as possible. Even with an icebreaker, it may be impossible to penetrate the pack ice that far south earlier in the season.
Antarctica is the fifth largest of the Earths seven continents. The southernmost, coldest, windiest, highest, most remote, and most recently discovered continent, it surrounds the South Pole, the point at the southern end of the Earths axis. Almost completely covered by ice, Antarctica has no permanent human population. The continent is ringed by the Southern Ocean. The entire area south of the Antarctic Convergence, which serves as the northern boundary of the Southern Ocean, is referred to as the Antarctic region. Antarctica means opposite to the Arctic, the Earths northernmost region.
The continent is shaped somewhat like a comma, with a round body surrounding the pole and a tail curving toward South America. The round portion, lying mainly in the Eastern Hemisphere, makes up East Antarctica. The tail and its thickened base, located entirely in the Western Hemisphere, form West Antarctica. Antarctica lies 1,000 km (600 mi) from South America, its nearest neighbor; 4,000 km (2,500 mi) from Africa; and 2,500 km (1,600 mi) from Australia. Antarcticas latitude (location in relation to the equator) and high elevations make it the coldest continent. Air temperatures of the high inland regions fall below 80°C (-110°F) in winter and rise only to 30°C (20°F) in summer. The warmest coastal regions reach the freezing point in summer but drop well below in winter.
The last continent to be discovered, Antarctica remained hidden behind barriers of fog, storm, and sea ice until it was first sighted in the early 19th century. Because of the extreme cold and the lack of native peoples, forests, land animals, and obvious natural resources, the continent remained largely neglected for decades after discovery. Scientific expeditions and seal hunters had explored only fragments of its coasts by the end of the 19th century, while the interior remained unknown. Explorers first reached the South Pole in 1911, and the first permanent settlementsscientific stationswere established in the early 1940s. From that time the pace of exploration accelerated rapidly. Scientists continue to conduct research in Antarctica, and in recent years increasing numbers of tourists have visited Antarctica to appreciate the regions majestic scenery and wildlife.
Seven nationsArgentina, Australia, the United Kingdom, Chile, France, New Zealand, and Norwayclaim territory in Antarctica. Other nations, including the United States and Russia, do not acknowledge these claims and make no claims of their own, but reserve rights to claim territory in the future. Since 1961 the continent has been administered under the Antarctic Treaty, an international agreement to preserve the continent for peaceful scientific study.
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