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- Introduction. The coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth was minus 128.56 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 89.2 degrees Celsius), registered on July 21, 1983, at Antarctica's Vostok station.
- It's seriously dry. The Dry Valleys of Antarctica are the driest place on Earth, with low humidity and almost no snow or ice cover.
- There's a lot of wind. On average, Antarctica is the windiest continent. Winds in some places of the continent can reach 200 mph (320 km/h).
- It's a big place. Antarctica is the fifth largest continent.
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- Antarctica contains about 90% of the world's ice and about 70% of the world's fresh water.
- With temperatures as low as -128 F, Antarctica is the coldest place on Earth.
- Antarctica is the 5th largest continent and is double the size of Australia. However, it doesn't have a capital city or an official language, and no country controls it.
- Antarctica is a desert. It only gets about 2 inches of snow each year. The snow there is old, and it never melts.
- Of the total 14 million square kilometers in Antarctica, almost 98% is covered with ice sheets.
- Almost 90% of the world’s ice in the form of ice sheets is available in Antarctica. The average thickness of the sheet is 2,160 meters, which is 4,776 meters thick at the best.
- It is the emptiest, driest, coldest, highest and windiest place on the face of the planet.
- There are no land mammals in Antarctica.
Nov 23, 2023 · Antarctica was first put on maps in 1886 and has intrigued explorers, scientists, and travelers ever since. Here are 60 interesting facts you should know.
- The Antarctic Continent Is A Fairly Recent Discovery
- What’s in A Name
- Antarctica Is Quite Large
- Winters Are Long and Dark
- But You Have The Long Bright Summer to Look Forward To!
- Seasonal Changes
- A Treaty to End Tensions
- A Desert Wasteland
- A Very Important Current
- Meteorites Are Often Found in Antarctica
There were suspicions that there could be another landmass to the south, but no one actually saw it with their own eyes until 1819. Antarctica was the last of the seven continents to be discovered.
Although Antarctica is a recent discovery, the word itself, which means “opposite the poles” was used as far back as 350 B.C. Although there was no evidence to support the theory, many people believed that there was a giant land mass at the bottom of the earth long before it was discovered.
Although small compared to other continents, Antarctica is actually quite large at 14 million square kilometers.
As if Antarctic winters aren’t bad enough, imagine a long, bitterly cold winter without any sun. During winter, the sun does not rise which means Antarctica is plunged into months of total darkness.
Summer in Antarctica is the complete opposite of winter when it comes to the sun; it rises and doesn’t set for the entire season which means you get several months of sunshine 24 hours a day!
Antarctica’s size changes depending on what season it is. In winter, when the sea ice expands, the continent nearly doubles in size!
Like any other new lands discovered by humans, tensions run high when several different nations feel that they have ownership of it. Since Antarctica is the only continent to have never been settled and to have no indigenous population, many countries vied for ownership at the same time. To quell these tensions, a Treatywas introduced in 1959 and i...
Something that will likely be shocking to you is the fact that Antarctica is mostly desert. If you’re like most people, the words hot, dry, and vast come to mind. Well, Antarctica is definitely vast and dry but it’s definitely not hot! But a desert doesn’t need to be hot to be classified as a desert. It just needs to be very dry and Antarctica, par...
The Circumpolar Current is a very well-known wind-driven current that moves clockwise around the continent. It moves air, salt, nutrients, and marine species to keep things flowing as they should.
It’s easy to spot things that are out of place in Antarctica because the landscape is not all that varied. This is why the meteorites that land here are so easy to find. So many are found here that it makes it seem like meteorites fall here all the time but, in fact, they don’t fall on Antarctica any more than they do anywhere else. To date, over 1...
Nov 6, 2018 · One internet user has compiled a list of the most interesting Antarctica facts. From a birth that's forever in the Guinness Book of Records and Tinder matches to barren valleys with highest meteorite count and bloody waterfalls, the South Pole has a lot to offer if you dare to go there.
Jul 13, 2023 · That’s why we’ve put together this list with 18 interesting facts about Antarctica, from the volcanoes that lie under the ice to the mysterious blood-red waterfall, but no more spoilers, let’s dive into the full list.
