The South Pole

Antarctica is a place shrouded with mystery of the past. With the advance of science, it will help us to unearth the clues to the future.

Below are information relating to it's first speculations of its existence to the exploration of the continent.

About the Polar Region
The continent is shaped like a comma; it's rounded body encircles the South Pole while it's tail faces the South America. It is the world's coldest, windiest and driest continent. The last wilderness on the planet is also the extreme playground that hosts gigantic glaciers, ice sheet, ice shelves, icebergs, snows, blizzards, crevasses, mirages, penguins, seals, whales, the dancing aurora during the winter and clear calm sky during the summer.
Up until 160 million years ago, Antarctica was the centre of Gondwanaland, a super-continent that existed in the southern hemisphere before it drifted apart to form the modern world. Today, at the southern-most point of the Earth, it has an area of 14 million sq km, an average temperature of 0°C in summer to -35°C in winter, a continent where compass readings are irrelevant, a region where all longitudes meet, and a land of vast emptiness.

Speculations of The Unknown South Land
In the sixth century B.C., Greek philosopher and mathematician Phythagoras calculated that the Earth was round. Two centuries later, in the fourth century B.C., Aristotle suggested that the landmass of the northern hemisphere must be balanced by a large landmass in the south; thus it was later called as Terra Australis Incognita (The Unknown South Land). He gave it a name - Antarktikos ("opposite to the north") because it lies opposite the north constellation, Arktos (the Bear). By 200 A.D., philosophers such as Pomponius Mela had postulated the existence of a cold continent at the southern pole of a globe roughly the size that we now know it to be, spinning around the sun.

Early Eighteenth Century Explorers to the Heroic Age (1901 - 1920)
The crossing of the Antarctic Circle did not happen until 17th January 1773 by James Cook when his Resolution and Adventure became the first ships to do so. However, in his quest to Terra Australis Incognita, he did not sight any landmass when he was circumnavigating Antarctica - he was only 130km (80 miles) away from the continent. They had to retreat after several failed attempts to penetrate the pack ice, winter was coming and his men's health were failing. Nevertheless, he became the first man to circumnavigate the Antarctic continent and crossed the Antarctic Circle three times - a record that can only be rivaled 50 years later.

Half a century later, the race to the first sighting of the Antarctica Peninsula was reported by three different teams; William Smith and Edward Bransfield saw and charted part of the Antarctica Peninsula on 30th January 1820; exactly two weeks later, Thaddeus von Bellingshausen would have seen the continent if the weather had been fine, in stead he saw "a solid stretch of ice running from east through south to west" which was probably an ice shelf that may at that time attached to the base of Haakon VII Sea - geographers regard continental ice as part of the landmass thus the first sighting of "Antarctica" may be credited to Bellingshausen; in November 1820, young Nathaniel Palmer sighted land and sailed into a caldera known as Port Foster near the tip of Antarctica Peninsula and had dubiously claimed to have been the first to see the Antarctic Continent.

The first ever landing was made by Bull, Borchgrevink and Kristensen at Cape Adare, located at the edge of Ross Sea.

Roald Engelbreth Gravning Amundsen was the first person to reach the South Geographical Pole on 14th December 1911.

Clues to the Future
The Antarctic continent is a vast laboratory by itself. As recent as the current century that human started to collect scientific data for scientific study - from its continent's ice, its sea water, its freshwater lakes, its dry lands, its rock and ice, its flora and fauna to its sky. Only when we began to understand the beauty of its existence, we can go forward to achieve greater improvement for the benefits of our lives.