Antarctica, features and articles | Educational Science

Feb 29, 2008

Arctic Ice Returns, Thin and Tentative

Arctic ice has reformed rapidly this winter after a record summer low, but it still covers less of the Arctic Ocean than it did in previous decades, NASA scientists announced today in an update of the states of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice. March is the month where Arctic sea...

Nov 30, 2009

Robotic Planes Capture Detailed Images of Remote Antarctic

SAN FRANCISCO — Unmanned planes flying over one of the most forbidding regions of Antarctica have captured the first close-up images of the area, where the cold, dense seawater that drives the ocean's circulation is formed. These unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are proving a boon to scientists who study the...

Nov 30, 2009

The First American Women in Antarctica

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation. In the spring of 1969, Terry Tickhill Terrell was 19 and an undergraduate chemistry major at Ohio State University, bored with her lab work and restless. She had never traveled more than 250 miles...

May 31, 2009

Giant Glaciers Can Shrink Rapidly

Huge glaciers like those in Greenland and Antarctica can shrink or retreat rapidly, a new study of a prehistoric glacier suggests. An ancient glacier in the Canadian Arctic rapidly retreated in just a few hundred years, according to new findings by paleoclimatologists at the University at Buffalo. The results are...

Nov 30, 2010

Puzzle of Antarctic Ice Melt Solved

Researchers have finally found an answer to a question they have been asking for years: Recent data and satellite information have indicated what has been driving the rapid loss of ice in Western Antarctica. Glaciologists from the University of Colorado at Boulder and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland...

Oct 31, 2010

Antarctic Peninsula Headed into Spring

While the Northern Hemisphere is headed toward winter, the Antarctic Peninsula's ice has begun melting with the onset of spring. This Nov. 15 image from NASA's Terra satellite caught this rare, nearly cloud-free view of the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, as the sea ice began to melt. The...

Sep 30, 2010

Creatures of the Frozen Deep: Antarctica's Sea Life

Ice fish (Image credit: British Antarctic Survey.) This ghostly-looking fish has no red blood cells. Glycerol in its blood acts as antifreeze, allowing the fish to stay alive in the frigid Antarctic conditions. Sea Spider (Image credit: British Antarctic Survey.) Arachnophobes beware: More species of sea spider are found around...

Jul 31, 2010

Relics from Tragic Race to South Pole Up for Sale

Skis worn by a member of English explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott's doomed expedition to the South Pole will be auctioned off next month at Christie's in London. The auction of the skis and other equipment that belonged to Canadian scientist Charles Seymour Wright was reported by Discovery News. A...

Sep 30, 2011

Why Rescue Missions from Antarctica Are So Hard

In most places, when you have a stroke you get sent straight to the hospital. But things get trickier when you have a stroke in the middle of the Antarctic ice sheet. Renee-Nicole Douceur, the manager of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, suffered a stroke in August. She remains at...

May 31, 2011

Radar Reveals Fjords Hidden Beneath Antarctic Ice

A dramatic new landscape of fjords hidden under miles of ice in Antarctica has been revealed. The fjords reveal how disruptions related to ice here could dramatically affect global sea levels, the researchers said. A team of scientists from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia made the discovery...

Jan 31, 2011

In Photos: Huge Icebergs Break Off Antarctica

Antarctica, Iceberg Maker (Image credit: NASA/Jane Peterson)Icebergs come in myriad shapes, large and small. This photo was taken out the window of a NASA DC-8 research aircraft from 2,000 feet above the Amundsen Sea in West Antarctica on Oct. 21, 2009. Antarctica, Iceberg Maker (Image credit: NASA)The iceberg B-09B is...

Jul 31, 2012

Quakes Beneath Antarctic Glacier Linked to Ocean Tides

Thousands of earthquakes occurring in rapid succession in less than a year under an Antarctic glacier may have been linked to ocean tides, new research suggests. Scientists investigated seismic activity under David Glacier, a large glacier in East Antarctica about 270 square miles (700 square kilometers) in size. The glacier...

Sep 30, 2013

Antarctica's Scars Hold Clues to Hidden Water

Deep furrows on Antarctica's floating ice shelves mark arch-shaped channels melted out under the ice. Thinner ice floats lower, and researchers can read the corrugated surface topography like a map that mirrors what lies beneath. Now, a new study published today (Oct. 6) in the journal Nature Geoscience suggests that...

Sep 30, 2013

Ax Falls for Antarctic Research Projects After Shutdown

The casualty list from the government shutdown earlier this month continues to grow for U.S. Antarctic science. On the kill list so far: the $10-million WISSARD drilling project, the first to discover microscopic life in a buried Antarctic lake; an expedition to look at how melting ice sheets change marine...

Sep 30, 2013

NASA's IceBridge Readies 1st Antarctica-Based Research Flights

In a few weeks, NASA's Operation IceBridge will take to the skies for another busy season of monitoring ice sheets, glaciers and sea ice from above. This year, the mission will be stationed in Antarctica for the first time, enabling scientists to conduct longer flights, and explore areas of the...