October 07, 2026
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to physicist Francis Halzen for his leadership in creating the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a remarkable scientific facility buried deep within the Antarctic ice.
October 06, 2026
Deception Island is often remembered as a convenient harbour for sealers, but in 1829 it briefly became something far more unusual: one of Antarctica’s earliest scientific field laboratories. During the voyage of HMS Chanticleer, Royal Navy officer and scientist Henry Foster transformed the volcanic island into a site for experiments designed to measure the Earth itself.
October 05, 2026
Hidden beneath the ice of East Antarctica lies one of the continent's greatest mysteries and potentially one of its most significant climate threats. The Wilkes Subglacial Basin, a vast depression buried beneath kilometres of ice, remains among the least explored regions in Antarctica despite holding enough ice to raise global sea levels by an estimated three to four metres if widespread retreat were to occur.
Antarctica's winter sea ice has reached its third-lowest maximum extent since satellite monitoring began in 1979, adding to growing concerns that the continent is entering a new phase of sustained sea ice decline.
China has announced plans to establish a sixth research station in Antarctica, expanding its scientific footprint into one of the continent's least-studied regions: Marie Byrd Land in West Antarctica. According to reports, construction could begin next year, with the station intended to support research into climate change, ice sheets, and marine ecosystems.
A new fleet of autonomous ocean drones has begun a five-year effort to monitor the Southern Ocean, targeting one of the biggest unanswered questions in climate science: exactly how much carbon dioxide is being absorbed by the waters surrounding Antarctica.
Two ski-equipped Twin Otter aircraft spent the 2024/25 austral summer attempting something rarely achieved in Antarctic science: circling an entire continent while collecting critical data from one of the most important, and least visible, boundaries on Earth.
September 21, 2026
At China’s Zhongshan Station in East Antarctica, aircraft operating during the 2025-26 season relied on a carefully prepared strip of compacted snow marked by flags and governed by constantly changing weather conditions.
September 20, 2026
Winter storms in the southern Ross Sea are becoming more frequent and more intense, according to new research from the University of Otago, with implications that extend well beyond meteorology. The findings suggest that changing storm patterns are already affecting sea-ice conditions that underpin scientific operations in one of Antarctica's most important research regions.
September 19, 2026
A major new study has produced the most comprehensive inventory yet of volcanoes concealed beneath Antarctica's ice sheet, providing researchers with an important new tool for understanding how geological processes may influence the future behaviour of the Antarctic Ice Sheet.
September 18, 2026
On 17 January 1773, the two ships became the first known vessels to cross the Antarctic Circle. Commanded by James Cook and Tobias Furneaux, the expedition was searching for the supposed southern continent, but what the sailors encountered instead was a vast, hostile seascape of fog, ice and bitter cold
September 18, 2026
Antarctica is synonymous with ice today, but during the Late Cretaceous, around 90 million years ago, the continent looked dramatically different. New research led by scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute has revealed that wildfires regularly burned in forests growing close to the South Pole, making them the southernmost known wildfires ever identified on Earth.
September 18, 2026
The most comprehensive assessment yet of changes in the world's polar ice sheets, led by researchers from Northumbria University and supported by NASA, combined evidence from 42 independent satellite surveys spanning more than five decades. The findings show that the two ice sheets lost an estimated 11,309 billion tonnes of ice between 1979 and 2023.