September 25, 2026
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 24, 2026
Scientists have achieved a major breakthrough in polar biology by capturing the first high-resolution images of living Antarctic fish cells at temperatures close to freezing, opening a new window into how life survives in one of Earth's most extreme environments.
September 22, 2026
A new academic study examining former Antarctic tour guides has reopened a long-running debate over the role of tourism in one of the planet’s most environmentally significant regions, prompting a detailed response from the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO).
September 22, 2026
Over the past decade, horizon scanning has become one of the most influential tools used by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) to identify the questions that matter most for the future of Antarctic and Southern Ocean science.
September 21, 2026
For centuries, one of the most influential geographic ideas about the southern hemisphere rested on remarkably thin evidence. Claudius Ptolemy’s world map, based on knowledge compiled in the second century AD and revived during the Renaissance, depicted the Indian Ocean as a vast enclosed sea, bounded to the south by an unknown landmass.
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.
September 16, 2026
The waters surrounding the South Orkney Islands have emerged as an important hotspot for recovering whale populations, prompting Antarctic tour operators to introduce a new vessel-speed restriction aimed at reducing the risk of ship strikes.