Awesome Antarctica

While there have been flags associated with Antarctica, they have never been official. That’s because Antarctica isn’t a country. CGP Grey explains how this enormous land mass is dotted with scientific outposts representing numerous countries and how it ended up with its various flags over the years.

We’ve seen the airport at Antarctica’s Troll Research Station. Now Extreme Aviation Iceland gives us a first-person view from the cockpit as an Icelandair Boeing 767 comes in for a landing and faces the frigid conditions at one of the world’s Southernmost air strips. Stick around to the end to see them take back off.

After running into ice in 1915, explorer Ernest Shackleton’s ship the Endurance has been found at the bottom of the ocean off of Antarctica. The Endurance22 Expedition located the ship and shared this incredible 4K footage of the vessel, which is still largely intact, where it came to rest nearly 10,000 feet below the surface.

Scientists needing to access Antarctica’s Troll Research Station used to have to travel by boat and on foot to access their outpost. These days, airplanes make the trip easier, but there’s nothing easy about the preparation needed to land a jumbo jet on a runway built on the slick blue ice of a glacier. Flightradar24 explains.

The Union Glacier Camp is a private camping facility in Antarctica. It sets up each year to operate from November to January – aka Antarctic summer. Studiocanoe takes us on a lighthearted tour of the isolated camp, which provides shelter from the frigid temperatures, and acts as a hub for expeditions in the area.

Martin Heck of Timestorm Films journeyed to the South Pole to bring us this time-lapse footage of the colorful, dancing lights of the Aurora Australis. With nighttime temperatures as below -70°C/-95°F, he needed special housings to ensure the cameras didn’t fail.

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke teamed up with Greenpeace to release an instrumental piece to help support nature conservation in one of the world’s most precious locations. The track is accompanied by dramatic black and white footage captured by the ship Arctic Sunrise.

Several years back, British researchers on an exploratory mission in Antarctica came back to their inflatable boat to discover an unwanted guest had taken over, and he didn’t seem to want them to leave.

Designer Atsuhiro Hayashi’s ice cubes float polar bears and penguins on mini glaciers in your drinks, while their gradual melting reminds us of the impact of global warming on the polar icecaps.

There’s a rumor that planes flying over the heads of penguins makes them fall over and unable to right themselves, causing mass casualties. Russia Today’s reporters get to the bottom the story.

We knew that Google Street View was a cool way to explore big cities and country backroads, but we had no idea they had POV shots of Antarctica. No cars. Just snow, rocks, and lots of penguins.

Kensington Tours now offers travel packages to Antarctica. Trek to ice waves and ice caves, see a massive emperor penguin colony, go kite skiing, ice and mountain climbing and more.