Antarctic station at the South Pole “Amundsen-Scott.
Evidence of the resilience of the human spirit, capable of withstanding such harsh conditions of the southernmost continent of the planet, stations in Antarctica are literally and figuratively oases of warmth in the endless icy expanses of the continent. Antarctica is explored by 12 countries, and almost all have their own bases - seasonal or year-round. In addition to research work, Antarctic stations perform another, no less honorable and difficult task - receiving polar tourists. Whether as part of an Antarctic cruise or on the way to the South Pole, travelers have a unique opportunity to get acquainted with the life of polar explorers, live for several days in tent camps and take exciting excursions through the nearby expanses of Antarctica.
The main attraction of Union Glacier is the amazingly beautiful runway that receives multi-ton “Silts”.
Amundsen-Scott Station
Amundsen-Scott Station is the most famous Antarctic station. Its popularity is due to one simple fact: the station is located exactly at the South Pole of the Earth, and upon arriving here, you actually perform two tasks - to stand at the pole and get acquainted with polar life. In addition to its unique location, Amundsen-Scott is also known for being the first base in Antarctica, founded 45 years after Amundsen and Scott reached the planet’s South Pole. Among other things, the station is an example of high-tech construction in extremely difficult Antarctic conditions: the temperature inside is room temperature, and jack piles allow the Amundsen-Scott to be lifted as it becomes covered with snow. Tourists are welcome here: planes with travelers land at the local airfield in December - January. A tour of the station and the opportunity to send a letter home with a South Pole stamp are the main features of the base.
Vostok station
The unique Russian Vostok station, founded in 1957 among the pristine snow-white expanses of inner Antarctica, unfortunately does not accept tourists. To put it bluntly, there are no conditions for frivolous entertainment here: the pole is about 1,200 km away, the highest temperature during the year is just under -30 °C, as well as a total lack of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the air due to the location at an altitude of almost 3 km above sea level - these are just some of the details of her difficult life. However, the exclusivity of this place makes us talk about the station even beyond the possibility of visiting it: it was here that the lowest temperature in Antarctica was recorded - minus 89.2 °C. The only way to get to Vostok station is by signing up as a volunteer at the Institute for Arctic and Antarctic Research - so let’s dream for now...
Union Glacier Station
Strictly speaking, Union Glacier is not a station, but a tent base, operating only in the warm season. Its main purpose is to serve as a home for tourists arriving in Antarctica with the help of an American company through the Chilean Punta Arenas. The main attraction of Union Glacier is the amazingly beautiful runway that receives multi-ton “Silts”. It is located directly on impressively thick blue ice, which does not even need to be leveled - its surface is so perfectly smooth. The logical name “Blue Ice” once again convinces you that you are in Antarctica - where else on the planet can a plane easily land on ice like that! Among other things, at Union Glacier tourists will find individual tents and utility modules, a canteen and toilets - by the way, the rules for using them invariably act as the main photographic attraction of the station.
Antarctica is the most severe climatic region on Earth. The lowest air temperature on Earth was recorded here: 89.2 degrees below zero. Let's go on a trip, look at the Antarctic landscapes and find out what are scientists doing there?
American Palmer Station, located on Anvers Island, north of the Antarctic Circle. Constructed in 1968. Much of the research is carried out by marine biologists.
Temperature -37.1 degrees Celsius. In East Antarctica, at the Soviet Antarctic station Vostok, on July 21, 1983, the lowest air temperature on Earth in the entire history of meteorological measurements was recorded: 89.2 degrees below zero.
Antarctica was discovered on January 16 (28), 1820 by a Russian expedition led by Thaddeus Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev. Previously, the existence of the southern continent (lat. Terra Australis) was stated hypothetically; it was often combined with South America and Australia.
A large iceberg off the coast of Antarctica, January 1, 2010. As a rule, icebergs break off from ice shelves. Since the density of ice is 920 kg/m3 and the density of sea water is about 1,025 kg/m3, about 90% of the iceberg's volume is under water.
The winds here leave such strange, towering traces.
Real model: Adelie penguin. A very trusting bird, sometimes reminiscent of a human in its habits.
Mother of pearl clouds. These are thin translucent, remarkable and very rare clouds that form in the sky at high altitudes in the stratosphere (about 20-30 km) and apparently consist of ice crystals or supercooled water droplets.
Northern Lights at Antarctic McMurdo Station.
Ghost ship. Antarctica is the highest continent on Earth, the average height of the continent's surface above sea level is more than 2000 m, and in the center of the continent it reaches 4000 meters
Brazilian Antarctic station Comandante Ferraz. The base was opened on February 6, 1984. On February 25, 2012, the station was destroyed by fire. The fire broke out in the generator room, from where it spread to the entire station.
Scientists throw hot water into the air and watch as they turn into ice and steam crystals.
Whale skeleton.
Multiplied iceberg. This is a fata morgana - a rare complex optical phenomenon in the atmosphere, consisting of several forms of mirages, in which distant objects are visible repeatedly and with various distortions.
Moon on Anvers Island.
Adélie penguins walk in orderly rows at Cape Denison, Commonwealth Bay, East Antarctica.
A beautiful iceberg near Palmer Station.
A leopard seal caught a penguin. This is a terrible predator. The leopard seal has a very streamlined body, allowing it to develop great speed in the water. Its head is unusually flattened and looks almost reptile-like. Along with the killer whale, the leopard seal is the dominant predator of the south polar region, being able to reach speeds of up to 40 km/h and dive to depths of up to 300 m.
The moon shines over McMurdo Station.
Adélie penguins on an ice floe, East Antarctica.
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“Like flies here and there, rumors spread from house to house, and toothless old women spread them to their minds.”
V.Vysotsky
Recently, on the Internet, among other “urban legends,” at least strange messages have been migrating from resource to resource, one way or another connected with the American polar station Amundsen-Scott. It is located in Antarctica at a point coinciding with the South Geographic Pole. The informative value of this kind of information, repeatedly replicated by supporters of conspiracy theories, depends only on the imagination of one or another author. Therefore, I will not bother publishing links to such sources, limiting myself to only a brief retelling of the versions.
1. An under-ice bunker “hotel” is being built at the south pole to accommodate high-ranking alien visitors whose arrival on Earth is expected in the near future.
2. At the south pole, the United States built SPT (South Pole Telescope) - a new tracking station for Planet X/Nibiru.
In the material presented below, I did not try to get to the root of the reasons that prompted various authors to make assumptions of this kind. Also, I did not set out to prove the fallacy and show the absurdity of these insinuations. First of all, because this is a very useless exercise - for the “creators of entities” will “breed” new ones, and those who believe them boundlessly and blindly will only become stronger in their faith.
For these reasons, I will limit myself to posting information about two research projects being implemented in Antarctica at the South Pole - the IceCube neutrino “telescope” under construction and the one already in operation since February 2007. SPT, which is designed to study cosmic microwave background radiation.
1. Amundsen-Scott - American Antarctic station. Brief information.
The American Amundsen-Scott Research Station is located on top of the Antarctic ice dome, at an altitude of approximately 2850 m above sea level. When it first began its work in 1956, it was located exactly at the South Geographic Pole. However, at present, due to glacier drift, the location of the first objects of the station has shifted about a hundred meters away from the “point” of the pole. The station got its name in honor of the discoverers of the south pole - R. Amundsen and R. Scott, who reached their goal in 1911-1912. The average annual temperature is about −49°C. After the commissioning of the third stage, the station can accommodate up to 150 people in summer and about 50 in winter.
You can take a virtual tour of the station.
2. Neutrino “telescopes”
Neutrinos, due to weak interaction with matter, can emerge from objects that are not transparent to other types of radiation and, therefore, can provide important information about the processes inside them.
The main directions of research in the field of neutrino astrophysics currently being carried out:
1. Study of the internal structure of the Sun.
2. Study of gravitational collapse of massive stars.
3. Search for neutrinos from objects in which cosmic ray acceleration appears to occur, such as binary star systems, nebulae formed after supernova explosions, nuclei of active galaxies, and sources of gamma-ray bursts.
4. Search for dark matter using neutrinos.
5.Research of neutrino oscillations using atmospheric neutrinos or solar neutrinos as a source.
6. Search for neutrinos from the interior of the Earth (geoneutrino).
7. Study of the rate of formation of massive stars in early epochs based on the diffuse neutrino flux from all gravitational collapses
In June 2005 it was decided to combine the largest neutrino detectors on four continents (Super-Kamiokande in Japan, Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Canada, Large Volume Detector in Italy and Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector at the South Pole of the Earth) into a single network called SNEWS (SuperNova Early Warning System). The results of round-the-clock monitoring are sent to a central computer located at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the USA. The purpose of the experiment is to give for the first time an early and, most importantly, reliable forecast of supernova explosions in our Galaxy.
In Russia, research in the field of elementary particle physics, the atomic nucleus, cosmic ray physics and neutrino astrophysics is carried out by the Institute of Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, established by a resolution of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences dated December 24, 1970. based on a government decision taken at the initiative of the Nuclear Physics Division. The Institute is a pioneer in the development of research in the field of underground and deep-sea neutrino physics. In the North Caucasus, the Institute built the Baksan Neutrino Observatory with a complex of large-scale underground neutrino telescopes (gallium-germanium) and large-area ground-based installations for research in the field of solar neutrino physics, cosmic ray physics and neutrino astrophysics. On Lake Baikal, the Institute created the world's first stationary deep-sea neutrino telescope to record high-energy neutrinos passing through globe.
2.1. Underground neutrino “telescopes”
The method of recording charged particles produced by the interaction of neutrinos is very diverse - scintillation tanks (Baksan Scintillation Telescope), streamer tubes (MACRO installation), registration of Cherenkov light in water (Super-Kamiokande and SNO installations). The energy threshold of the installations is 510 MeV. To reduce the background from atmospheric muons, neutrino telescopes are placed in rooms shielded from the surface by a layer of soil 1-2 km thick. It should be noted that a number of installations (IMB, NUSEX, FREJUS, SOUDAN) were created in the 80s primarily to search for proton decay.
The largest existing underground neutrino telescope is the Super-Kamiokande water Cherenkov detector (Japan). The detector is a steel cylindrical tank (41 m high and 38 m in diameter) filled with water. The total mass of water is 50 thousand tons. The internal volume is viewed by 11 thousand photomultiplier tubes with a photocathode diameter of 50 cm, evenly placed along the inner surface of the tank. The area covered by photomultiplier tube photocathodes is approximately equal to 40% of the total internal area of the tank. Outside, the reservoir is surrounded on all sides by a 2.5 m thick layer of water, also visible through photomultiplier tubes. A large number of photomultipliers makes it possible to obtain a detailed “image” of an event and to separate events from the interaction of muon neutrinos with the formation of a muon from events caused by the interaction of electron neutrinos with an electron in the final state. The presence of active protection makes it possible to identify neutrino events not only from below, i.e. from neutrinos passing the Earth, but also from above.
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DETECTOR |
Year of commissioning |
Effective area (sq.m) |
State |
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South India |
dismantled |
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South Africa |
dismantled |
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in operation |
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IMB, KAMIOKANDE, NUSEX, FREJUS, LSD, SOUDAN, LVD |
only LVD in use |
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MACRO (Gran Sasso) |
Operation stopped in 2000. |
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SUPER-KAMIOKANDE |
in operation |
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in operation |
2.2. Optical neutrino “telescopes” in natural environments
The idea of registering neutrinos in natural bodies of water using the Cherenkov radiation of a muon generated during the interaction of neutrinos was proposed in the early 60s by M.A. Markov (Markov, 1960), but only in the 90s the idea found its experimental embodiment.
A deep-sea neutrino telescope can be represented as a system of spatially separated photodetectors (photomultipliers with a large photocathode area or hybrid photodetectors, such as Quasar-370 in the Baikal deep-sea neutrino telescope NT200). The distance between the photodetectors coincides in order of magnitude with the light absorption length. Neutrinos and, accordingly, muons from neutrinos cross the detector from all directions, but it is possible to separate muons from neutrinos from muons produced in the decays of pions and kaons only from directions from the lower hemisphere (from under the Earth). Indeed, only a neutrino can cross the globe and produce a muon near the surface.
Photodetectors are placed in glass spheres to protect them from external water pressure. A photodetector with additional electronics necessary for its operation (high voltage sources, divider, preamplifier, LED for calibration) is usually called an optical module. The optical modules are attached to a vertical cable with a buoy at one end and an anchor at the other. A cable with optical modules is usually called a garland or string (from the English string).
Discussions about the project for the first deep-sea neutrino telescope began in the mid-70s. The project was called DUMAND (Deep Underwater Muon and NeutrinoDetection). It was planned to create a deep-sea neutrino telescope in the Pacific Ocean, 20 km from one of the Hawaiian islands. During the work on this project, the methodological foundation for future experiments was laid, but the project itself was not implemented.
Since the early 80s, experiments on deep-sea recording of muons and neutrinos have been conducted on Lake Baikal. The impetus for the development of work on Lake Baikal was the remark of A.E. Chudakov, who drew attention to the fact that the presence of strong ice on Lake Baikal for almost 2 months makes it possible to carry out work on the deployment of a deep-sea installation relatively simply and cheaply. In 1998 The Baikal neutrino telescope NT200 was put into operation. The telescope is located in the southern part of the lake at a distance of 3.6 km from the shore. The center of the telescope is located at a depth of 1150m. This is the world's first successful experience in creating deep-sea installations of this scale. Currently, the expansion of the NT200 installation to the NT200+ installation has been completed. In the new configuration, three external strings have been added to the HT200 telescope at a distance of 100m from the center of the HT200. The sensitivity of the new installation to ultra-high-energy neutrinos has increased fourfold. The design of a deep-sea telescope with a volume of 1 km3 has begun.
Location of HT200
Schematic representation of the NT200 telescope. Separately shown are 2 pairs (4) of optical modules and an electronic module (3), forming a structural unit of the telescope, a “bundle”. 1 - detector electronics unit, 5,6 - lasers used for calibration.
Experimental diagram of a string with detecting and control modules on it. (SEM - electronic string module, DEM - electronic detector module)
Schematic of the expanded NT-200+ (profile and top view shown)
"Quasar" has a high voltage inside the bulb - 25 kV, so the Earth's magnetic field does not distort the trajectories of photoelectrons inside the bulb. "Quasar" has a very large diameter of the sensitive layer (370mm). This device can withstand pressure up to 150 atmospheres at a depth of 1100-1200m.
The effective areas and volumes of neutrino telescopes in natural environments significantly exceed the areas and volumes of underground installations, and the energy threshold is significantly higher - 10100 GeV. The main tasks of neutrino telescopes in natural environments are the study of the flux of high and ultra-high energy neutrinos from cosmic sources, the search for dark matter, as well as the search for exotic particles predicted by modern theory (magnetic monopoles, strangelets, Q-balls)
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DETECTOR |
Year of commissioning |
Effective area (thousand sq.m.) |
State |
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in operation |
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40 (E>100 TeV) |
in operation |
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1000 (E>100 TeV) |
is being designed |
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DUMAND-II (Hawaii) |
work stopped in 1995 |
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AMANDA (South Pole) |
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in operation |
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Under construction |
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ANTARES (Mediterranean Sea) |
Under construction |
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NESTOR (Mediterranean Sea) |
Under construction |
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NEMO (Mediterranean Sea) |
is being designed |
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KM3net (Mediterranean) |
is being designed |
2.3. Non-optical neutrino telescope projects
A reasonable limit for the volume of optical neutrino telescopes, at least for the next 20 years, is 1 cubic meter. km. Possible ways to increase the volume of neutrino telescopes and, therefore, move into the region of higher energies are associated with recording acoustic and high-frequency (100-1000 MHz) radio signals from electromagnetic and hadron cascades. The existence of acoustic and radio frequency signals from electromagnetic cascades was predicted in 1957 by G. Askaryan.
Currently, acoustic detectors are in the design stage and studying methods for isolating a useful signal from noise. It is assumed that the optical neutrino telescopes being created (HT200+, NESTOR, ANTARES, IceCube) will be supplemented with acoustic signal detectors to expand the effective registration volume. The possibility of using a system of hydrophones created by the US Navy near the Bahamas (AUTEC project) and an array of acoustic antennas installed in Kamchatka to monitor submarines in the Pacific Ocean (AGAM project) is being discussed.
Projects using high-frequency radio signal recording techniques are developing more successfully. For several years now, the RICE (Radio Ice Cherenkov Experiment) installation, consisting of 20 antennas frozen in the ice, has been operating at the South Pole. During the Antarctic summer season 2006-2007. It is planned to launch a balloon around the South Pole with an installation capable of detecting radio signals from neutrino interactions in thick Antarctic ice (ANITA project). From a height of 35 km, the installation will view a huge volume. It is assumed that in this experiment it will be possible to register the first events from ultra-high-energy neutrinos (>1017 eV). In the GLUE experiment, an attempt was made to register the signal from the interaction of neutrinos with the Moon using 2 radio telescopes.
2.4. Possibilities of observing signals from ultra-high energy neutrinos at the designed EAS installations
To study cosmic rays with energies above 1020 eV, an Auger installation with an area of 3000 square meters is being created in Argentina. km to record widespread air showers. Installations for detecting fluorescent light from EAS from satellites are being actively designed. Such installations (a mirror and a mosaic of photomultiplier tubes) will, from an orbital altitude (500 km), view an area tens of times larger than the area of the Auger installation. Currently, there are three projects: the European EUSO project, the American OWL and the Russian KLPVE.
Although the main goal of the new installations is to study cosmic rays above the CMB cutoff, these installations are also of interest for ultra-high-energy neutrino astrophysics.
2.5. Antarctic AMANDA and IceCube - optical neutrino “telescopes” in natural environments
In the early 90s, work began on the creation of the AMANDA neutrino telescope at the South Pole, at the American Amundsen-Scott station. The South Pole is known to be covered with ice about 3 km thick. The project was made possible thanks to a unique technique for creating deep (2 km!) channels in ice using hot water. The channel freezes after about 2 days and this time is enough to install a garland of photodetectors, but it is no longer possible to lift and repair the garland. Currently, AMANDA consists of 677 photodetectors located on 19 strings and is the largest neutrino telescope.
Work has begun on expanding the installation to a volume of 1 km3. The new IceCube installation will consist of 4,800 optical modules on 80 strings. An IceTop installation will be located above the installation to record widespread air showers from cosmic rays.
An ordinary telescope made of glass and metal seen from above IceCube (ice cube) at the American polar station Amundsen-Scott
IceCube is planned to be put into operation in 2011. Like its predecessor, the AMANDA muon neutrino detector, IceCube will be located deep under the Antarctic ice. At a depth of 1450 to 2450m, strong “threads” with attached optical detectors (photomultipliers) will be placed. Each “thread” will have 60 photomultiplier tubes. The optical system detects Cherenkov radiation from high-energy muons moving in an upward direction (that is, from underground). These muons can only be created through the interaction of muon neutrinos passing through the Earth with electrons and nucleons of ice (and a layer of soil under the ice, about 1 km thick). The flux of muons moving from top to bottom is much higher, but they are mostly generated in the upper layers of the atmosphere by cosmic ray particles. Thousands of kilometers of earthly matter serve as a filter, cutting off all particles that experience strong or electromagnetic interactions (muons, nucleons, gamma rays, etc.). Of all the known particles, only neutrinos can pass right through the Earth. Thus, although IceCube is located at the South Pole, it detects neutrinos coming from the northern hemisphere of the sky.
The name of the detector is due to the fact that the total volume of the Cherenkov radiator (ice) used in it in the design configuration will reach 1 cubic meter. km.
Neutrino telescopes IceCubeAmanda. Installation for recording EAS IceTop and
Appearance of sensors frozen in ice
Research planned at IceCube
Neutrino detection
Although the design rate of neutrino registration by the detector is low, the angular resolution is quite good. Within several years, a map of the flux of high-energy neutrinos from the northern celestial hemisphere is expected to be constructed.
Gamma radiation sources
Collisions of protons with protons or with photons usually generate elementary particles pions. A charged pion decays primarily into a muon and a muon neutrino, while a neutral pion typically decays into two gamma rays. Potentially, the neutrino flux could coincide with the gamma ray flux for sources such as gamma-ray bursts and supernova remnants. Data from IceCube, combined with data from high-energy gamma-ray detectors such as HESS and MAGIC, will help better understand the nature of these phenomena.
String theory
Given the power and location of the observatory, scientists intend to conduct a series of experiments designed to confirm or refute some of the statements of string theory, in particular the existence of the so-called sterile neutrino.
The $19.2 million SPT project was funded by the National Science Foundation with support from the Kavli Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
The height of the telescope is 22m, and the weight is 280t. It was initially assembled and tested in Kilgore, Texas, then disassembled, transported by ship to New Zealand, and from there by LC-130 to the South Pole. Like any project in Antarctica, SPT went through a long and complex logistics chain that stretched across the world. After delivery, from November 2006. a team of scientists led by Steve Padin, an employee of the University of Chicago, worked on assembling the telescope. SPT is currently the largest astronomical instrument at the American Amundsen-Scott Research Station.
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Caroline Alexander
A century ago, Briton Robert Scott lost and Norwegian Roald Amundsen won the battle for the South Pole. Why did Amundsen win?
“Visibility is poor. Terrible wind from the south. Minus 52 Celsius. Dogs do not tolerate cold well. It’s hard for people to move in frozen clothes, it’s difficult to regain strength - they have to spend nights in the cold... It’s unlikely that the weather will improve.”
The famous Norwegian Roald Amundsen made this brief entry in his diary on September 12, 1911, when his expedition was heading to the South Pole.
The conditions were harsh even for Antarctica, and it is not surprising - the Norwegians set out on a campaign from their base too early, even before the onset of the polar spring and relatively favorable weather. As a result, the dogs died, it was impossible to walk without them, and the people had frostbitten feet and could recover no earlier than in a month. What made Amundsen, an experienced and prudent traveler with a brilliant polar career behind him, act so imprudently?
Captivated by dreams. Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was born in 1872 into a wealthy family of shipowners and sailors. Already at the age of 25, as the second mate on the Belgica ship, he participated in a scientific Antarctic expedition. And when the Belgica got stuck in the ice, its crew members inevitably became the world’s first winterers in Antarctica.
The sailors, unprepared for such a turn of events, survived mainly thanks to the efforts of Amundsen and the doctor Frederick Cook (who, alas, later tarnished his good name with unsubstantiated claims that he was the first to conquer the North Pole and Mount McKinley).
Amundsen kept a diary, even then approaching the issue of organizing winter quarters with interest. “As for the tent, it is convenient in terms of shape and size, but too unstable in strong winds,” he noted in February 1898. In the future, persistently, year after year, the Norwegian will inventively improve his polar equipment. And the unscheduled hard winter, overshadowed by despair and illness of the crew, only strengthened him in his desire to fulfill his old dream.
This dream originated in childhood, when the future polar explorer read how John Franklin’s expedition died in search of the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. For many years this story haunted the Norwegian. Without abandoning his navigator career, Amundsen began simultaneously planning an Arctic expedition. And in 1903, the dream finally began to come true - Amundsen sailed north on the small fishing vessel Gjoa with six crew members (Franklin took 129 people with him). The purpose of the expedition was to find the Northwest Passage from east to west from Greenland to Alaska, and also to determine the current coordinates of the north magnetic pole (they change over time).
The Gjoa crew, carefully preparing to conquer the Northwest Passage, worked in the Arctic for three whole winters - and eventually managed to navigate the ship among the islands, shoals and ice of the Canadian Arctic archipelago to the Beaufort Sea, and then the Bering Sea. No one has ever succeeded in doing this before. “My childhood dream came true at that moment,” Amundsen wrote in his diary on August 26, 1905. “I had a strange feeling in my chest: I was exhausted, my strength had left me - but I could not hold back my tears of joy.”
Teach me, native. However, the energy left the enterprising Norwegian for only a short time. Even during the expedition on the schooner "Joa", Amundsen had the opportunity to observe the way of life of the Netsilik Eskimos, learning the secrets of survival in the harsh Arctic. “There is a joke that Norwegians are born with skis on their feet,” says polar historian Harald Jolle, “but there are a lot of important skills and abilities besides skis.” Therefore, not only Amundsen, but also other European travelers diligently adopted the experience of the aborigines. Thus, another Norwegian, Amundsen’s senior contemporary and comrade, the great polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen, learned from the Sami, the indigenous northern people of Norway, how to dress correctly, move through the snowy desert and get food in the cold. After the expedition to the Gjoa, Amundsen could tell how to travel in the harshest regions: loose clothing made of reindeer skin, in which the body breathes and retains heat; fur shoes, dog sleds, snowshoes. The Norwegian polar explorer also learned how to build Eskimo dwellings - ice caves and igloos. And Amundsen could now put all this knowledge into practice: he enthusiastically prepared to conquer the North Pole. But suddenly, for some reason, he abruptly changed the geographical vector and rushed to the extreme south.
It was probably due to the news that reached the Norwegian: Robert Peary had already visited the North Pole. Whether Piri actually visited there has not yet been established, but Amundsen only wanted to be the first everywhere.
It must be said that the South Pole, not yet conquered in those days, was the cherished dream of all discoverers, and the race for it, in terms of the intensity of passions, anticipated the space race. Roald Amundsen dreamed that conquering the South Pole would bring him not only fame, but also money for future expeditions.
For many months, Amundsen and his team stocked up on everything they needed, carefully thinking through every detail, strictly selecting provisions, clothing, and equipment. In January 1911, Roald Amundsen, a 38-year-old seasoned, experienced polar explorer, sets up a base camp in the Antarctic Welsh Bay. Although he had stepped onto hitherto unexplored ground, snow and ice were spread out around him - an element well known to him. And suddenly - this mysterious false start in September, which jeopardized the entire expedition.
Amundsen VS Scott. And the reason was simple: at the same time, a British Antarctic expedition under the command of Captain Robert Falcon Scott was preparing to go to the South Pole. Today we know that one of the expeditions was destined for a brilliant victory, while the other was destined for defeat and painful, tragic death. What determined the outcome of the battle for the pole?
What if Scott ends up first? — this thought drove Amundsen forward. But the Norwegian would not have become great if his ambition had not been combined with prudence. Having set out on a campaign prematurely in September 1911, just four days later he adequately assessed the situation, said to himself “stop” and decided to “go back as soon as possible and wait for the real spring.”
In his diary, Amundsen wrote: “To stubbornly continue the journey, risking losing people and animals - I cannot allow this. To win the game, you need to act wisely." Returning to the Framheim base (named after his ship Fram, which means "forward" in Norwegian), Amundsen was in such a hurry that two of the participants reached the camp even a day later than him. “This is not an expedition. This is panic,” Hjalmar Johansen, the most experienced polar explorer on the team, told him.
Amundsen did not take Hjalmar into the new detachment, which on October 20 set off for the second assault on the Pole. Amundsen and his four companions followed four loaded sleighs on skis. Each sleigh weighing 400 kilograms was pulled by a team of 13 dogs. People and animals had to travel more than 1,300 kilometers, descending and climbing monstrous chasms in glaciers (received emotional names from grateful Norwegians, such as the Devil's Glacier), passing abysses and ice in the Queen Maud Mountains and then conquering the Polar Plateau. Every second the weather threatened with another dangerous surprise.
But everything turned out well. “So we have arrived,” Amundsen wrote in his diary on December 14, 1911, right on time.
Leaving “Polheim” (as the team members dubbed the camp at the South Pole), Amundsen wrote a letter on notepaper to King Haakon VII of Norway “and a couple of lines to Scott, who, in all likelihood, will be the first to get here after us.” This letter ensured that even if something happened to Amundsen's people, the world would still know about his achievement.
Scott, having reached the Pole a month later than Amundsen, found this letter and nobly kept it - but could not personally hand it over. All five members of the British team died on the way back. The search team found the letter a year later next to Scott's body.
It is difficult to compare, in the words of the legendary chronicler of the British expedition Apsley Cherry-Garrard, Amundsen’s “business operation” and Scott’s “first-class tragedy.” One of the members of the English team, having frostbitten feet, secretly went into a deadly snowstorm so that his comrades would not have to carry him. The other, already exhausted, did not throw away the rock samples. Scott and the last two members of his squad did not reach the food warehouse only 17 kilometers.
And yet, in order to find out the reasons for this tragedy, we can try to understand the differences between the approaches of Scott and Amundsen. Amundsen brought dogs with him; Scott - pony and motor sleigh. Amundsen moved on skis - he and his team were great skiers - Scott could not boast of this. Amundsen prepared three times more supplies than Scott - Scott suffered from hunger and scurvy. The preparation of the Norwegian expedition is evidenced by the fact that on the way back it left extra supplies. On January 26, 1912, the Norwegians triumphantly returned to base - the British walked for another two months after this date, when the weather became truly unbearable.
Some of Scott's mistakes can be understood if we remember that he relied on the experience of his predecessors - his compatriot and rival Ernest Shackleton used ponies as draft force and almost reached the South Pole. And we must not lose sight of the fact that the British, having discovered the news of Amundsen’s primacy at the Pole, were in an extremely depressed state of mind, which may have fatally affected the resources of their bodies.
However, many researchers believe that the fundamental difference between Amundsen and Scott is determined not by the details of the organization, but by the general approach to equipping the expedition: in one case professional, in the other amateur. If a Norwegian goes on a hike, he is obliged to provide everything in order to return safe and sound. For the British, it was about struggle, heroism and overcoming. They relied not on professionalism, but on fortitude. Today such a view would be considered irresponsible. “The way Amundsen prepared for his expeditions is an example for me to follow,” says Borge Ousland, the Norwegian explorer who was the first to cross Antarctica alone. “He was always ready to learn from others. He clearly defined the problem and looked for ways to solve it.”
Life is in the Arctic. Having won the race for the Pole, Amundsen had no intention of resting on his laurels. In July 1918, he returned to the Arctic to fulfill his promise to Nansen and engage in scientific work: to study the movement of floating ice on the schooner Maud.
But his soul yearned for global discoveries, and in the 1920s, following the trends of the times, Amundsen made several unsuccessful attempts to fly over the North Pole. And only in 1926, the airship “Norway” (pilot - Italian Umberto Nobile, commander - Amundsen) crossed the Arctic by air for the first time in history.
But financially, Amundsen turned out to be much less fortunate than his charismatic compatriot and mentor Nansen: neither books nor lectures brought the polar explorer the expected material well-being. Embittered by lack of money, he quarreled with friends, including Nobile. But when the airship Nobile disappeared somewhere over the Arctic in May 1928, Amundsen, who was preparing for his wedding, persuaded his friends to give him money for a search plane and rushed to the Arctic, where search parties from all over the world were then sent. Nobile's team was then rescued by Soviet sailors.
And shortly before this, in the Arctic, searching not for another unexplored point on the Earth, but for a man, his friend and rival, the famous discoverer Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen went missing.
Routes of the expeditions of Scott and Amundsen
Amundsen and Scott: teams and equipment
nat-geo.ru
Scott vs. Amundsen: The Story of the Conquest of the South Pole
Ivan Siyak
The rivalry between the British and Norwegian expeditions, who sought to reach the center of Antarctica, is one of the most dramatic geographical discoveries in the history.
In 1909, the South Pole remained the last of the major geographical trophies not taken. It was expected that the United States would enter into a fierce battle over it with the British Empire. However, the leading American polar explorers Cook and Peary at that time focused on the Arctic, and the British expedition of Captain Robert Scott on the Terra Nova vessel received a temporary head start. Scott was in no hurry: the three-year program included extensive scientific research and methodical preparation for the trip to the Pole.
These plans were confused by the Norwegians. Having received a message about the conquest of the North Pole, Roald Amundsen did not want to be the second there and secretly sent his ship "Fram" to the South. In February 1911, he already received British officers at a camp on the Ross Glacier. “There is no doubt that Amundsen’s plan is a serious threat to ours,” Scott wrote in his diary. The race has begun.
Captain Scott
Roald Amundsen
In the preface to his memoirs, one of the members of the Terra Nova expedition later wrote: “For scientific research give me Scott; for a jerk to the pole - Amundsen; pray to Shackleton for salvation.”
Perhaps a penchant for the arts and sciences is one of the few reliably known positive qualities of Robert Scott. His literary talent was especially evident in his own diary, which became the basis for the myth of a hero who fell victim to circumstances.
Cracker, unsociable, human-function - Roald Amundsen was created to achieve results. This planning maniac called adventures the unfortunate consequence of poor preparation.
Team
The composition of Scott's expedition shocked the polar explorers of that time, numbering 65 people, including the Terra Nova crew, twelve scientists and cameraman Herbert Ponting. Five people set off on the trip to the Pole: the captain took with him the cavalryman and groom Ots, the head of the scientific program Wilson, his assistant, the caretaker Evans, and at the last moment the sailor Bowers. This spontaneous decision is considered fatal by many experts: the amount of food and equipment, even skis, was designed only for four.
Captain Scott's team. Photo by the Norwegian National Library
Amudsen's team could win any of the modern winter ultramarathons. Nine people landed with him in Antarctica. There were no mental workers - these were, first of all, physically strong men who had a set of skills necessary for survival. They were good skiers, many knew how to drive dogs, were qualified navigators, and only two did not have polar experience. The five best of them went to the Pole: the path for Amundsen's teams was paved by the Norwegian cross-country champion.
Roald Amundsen's team. Photo by the Norwegian National Library
Equipment
Like all Norwegian polar explorers of that time, Amundsen was a proponent of studying Eskimo ways of adapting to extreme cold. His expedition dressed in anoraks and kamikki boots, improved during the winter. “I would call any polar expedition without fur clothing inadequately equipped,” wrote the Norwegian. On the contrary, the cult of science and progress, burdened by the imperial “white man's burden,” did not allow Scott to benefit from the experience of the Aborigines. The British wore suits made of wool and rubberized fabric.
Modern research - in particular, blowing in a wind tunnel - has not revealed a significant advantage of one of the options.
On the left is Roald Amundsen's equipment, on the right is Scott's.
Transport
Amundsen's tactics were both effective and brutal. His four 400-kilogram sleigh with food and equipment was pulled by 52 Greenland huskies. As they moved toward their goal, the Norwegians killed them, fed them to other dogs, and ate them themselves. That is, as the load decreased, the transport, which was no longer needed, itself turned into food. 11 huskies returned to base camp.
Dog team on Roald Amundsen's expedition. Photo by the Norwegian National Library
Scott's complex transportation plan included the use of a motorized sled, Mongolian ponies, a team of Siberian huskies, and a final push on his own feet. An easily predictable failure: the sleigh quickly broke down, the ponies were dying of cold, there were too few huskies. For many hundreds of kilometers, the British themselves harnessed themselves to the sleigh, and the load on each one reached almost a hundredweight. Scott considered this rather an advantage - in the British tradition, the researcher had to reach the goal without “outside help.” Suffering turned achievement into feat.
Motorized sleds on Scott's expedition
Top: Mongolian ponies on Scott's expedition. Below: The Brits are pulling the weight
Food
Scott's failed transportation strategy led his people to starvation. By dragging a sled on their feet, they significantly increased the duration of the journey and the amount of calories required for such physical activity. At the same time, the British were unable to carry the required amount of provisions.
The quality of the food also affected. Unlike Norwegian biscuits, which contained wholemeal flour, oatmeal and yeast, British biscuits were made from pure wheat. Before reaching the Pole, Scott's team suffered from scurvy and nervous disorders associated with vitamin B deficiency. They did not have enough food for the trip back and did not have enough strength to reach the nearest warehouse.
About the nutrition of the Norwegians, it will be enough to say that on the way back they began to throw away excess food to lighten the sleigh.
Stop. Expedition of Roald Amundsen. Photo by the Norwegian National Library
To the Pole and back
The distance from the Norwegian base to the pole was 1,380 kilometers. It took Amundsen's team 56 days to complete it. Dog sleds made it possible to carry away more than one and a half tons of payload and create supply warehouses along the way for the return trip. On January 17, 1912, the Norwegians reach the South Pole and leave a Pulheim tent there with a message to the King of Norway about conquering the Pole and a request to Scott to deliver it to its destination: “The way home is very far, anything can happen, including something that will deprive us of the opportunity to personally report our journey." On the way back, Amundsen's sleigh became faster, and the team reached the base in 43 days.
Roald Amundsen's team at the South Pole. Photo by the Norwegian National Library
A month later, Amundsen's pulheim at the pole is found by the British, who have traveled 1,500 kilometers in 79 days. “Terrible disappointment! I feel pain for my faithful comrades. The end of all our dreams. It will be a sad return,” Scott wrote in his diary. Disappointed, hungry and sick, they wander back to the coast for another 71 days. Scott and his last two surviving companions die in a tent from exhaustion, 40 kilometers short of reaching the next warehouse.
Defeat
In the autumn of the same 1912, a tent with the bodies of Scott, Wilson and Bowers was found by their comrades from the Terra Nova expedition. The last letters and notes lie on the captain’s body, and Amundsen’s letter to the Norwegian king is kept in his boot. After the publication of Scott's diaries, an anti-Norwegian campaign unfolded in his homeland, and only imperial pride prevented the British from directly calling Amundsen a murderer.
However, Scott’s literary talent turned defeat into victory, and placed the painful death of his companions above the perfectly planned breakthrough of the Norwegians. “How can you equate Amundsen’s business operation with Scott’s first-class tragedy?” - contemporaries wrote. The primacy of the “stupid Norwegian sailor” was explained by his unexpected appearance in Antarctica, which disrupted the preparation plans of the British expedition, and the ignoble use of dogs. The death of the gentlemen from Scott's team, who by default were stronger in body and spirit, was explained by an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances.
It was only in the second half of the 20th century that the tactics of both expeditions were subjected to critical analysis, and in 2006 their equipment and rations were tested in the most realistic BBC experiment in Greenland. The British polar explorers were not successful this time either - their physical condition became so dangerous that doctors insisted on evacuation.
Last photo of Scott's team
birds.depositphotos.com
Amundsen-Scott Station, named after the discoverers of the South Pole, amazes with its scale and technology. In a complex of buildings around which there is nothing but ice for thousands of kilometers, there is literally its own separate world. They didn’t reveal all the scientific and research secrets to us, but they gave us an interesting tour of the residential blocks and showed us how polar explorers live...
Initially, during construction, the station was located exactly at the geographic south pole, but due to ice movement over several years, the base shifted to the side by 200 meters:
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This is our DC-3 aircraft. In fact, it was heavily modified by Basler and almost all of its components, including avionics and engines, are new:
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The plane can land both on the ground and on ice:
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This photo clearly shows how close the station is to the historical South Pole (group of flags in the center). And the lone flag on the right is the geographic South Pole:
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Upon arrival, we were met by a station employee and gave us a tour of the main building:
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It stands on stilts, just like many houses in the north. This was done to prevent the building from melting the ice underneath and “floating.” In addition, the space below is well blown by winds (in particular, the snow under the station has not been cleared even once since its construction):
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Entrance to the station: you need to climb two flights of stairs. Due to the thinness of the air, this is not easy to do:
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Residential blocks:
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At the Pole, during our visit, it was -25 degrees. We arrived in full uniform - three layers of clothing, hats, balaclavas, etc. - and then we were suddenly met by a guy in a light sweater and Crocs. He said that he was used to it: he had already survived several winters and the maximum frost he experienced here was minus 73 degrees. For about forty minutes, while we were walking around the station, he walked around looking like this:
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The inside of the station is simply amazing. Let's start with the fact that it has a huge gym. Popular games among employees are basketball and badminton. To heat the station, 10,000 gallons of aviation kerosene per week are used:
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Some statistics: 170 people live and work at the station, 50 people stay in the winter. They feed for free in the local canteen. They work 6 days a week, 9 hours a day. Everyone has a day off on Sunday. The cooks also have a day off and everyone, as a rule, eats what was left uneaten in the refrigerator from Saturday:
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There is a room for playing music (in the title photo), and in addition to the sports room, there is a gym:
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There is a room for trainings, conferences and similar events. When we passed by, there was a Spanish lesson going on:
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The station is two-story. On each floor it is pierced by a long corridor. Residential blocks go to the right, scientific and research blocks go to the left:
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Conference room:
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There is a balcony next to it, with a view of the station’s outbuildings:
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Everything that can be stored in unheated rooms lies in these hangars:
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This is the Ice cube neutrino observatory, with which scientists catch neutrinos from space. Briefly, it works like this: The collision of a neutrino and an atom produces particles known as muons and a flash of blue light called Vavilov-Cherenkov radiation. In transparent Arctic ice, IceCube's optical sensors will be able to recognize it. Usually, for neutrino observatories, they dig a shaft at depth and fill it with water, but the Americans decided not to waste time on trifles and built an Ice cube at the South Pole, where there is plenty of ice. The size of the observatory is 1 cubic kilometer, hence, apparently, the name. Project cost: $270 million:
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Theme "made a bow" on the balcony overlooking our plane:
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Throughout the base there are invitations to seminars and master classes. Here's an example of a writing workshop:
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I noticed the palm tree garlands attached to the ceiling. Apparently there is a longing for summer and warmth among the employees:
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Old station sign. Amundsen and Scott are two discoverers of the pole who conquered the South Pole almost simultaneously (well, if you look at it in a historical context) with a month difference:
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In front of this station there was another one, it was called "Dome". in 2010 it was finally dismantled and this photo shows the last day:
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Recreation room: billiards, darts, books and magazines:
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Scientific laboratory. They didn’t let us in, but they opened the door slightly. Pay attention to the trash cans: separate waste collection is practiced at the station:
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Fire departments. Standard American system: everyone has their own closet, in front of them is a completely finished uniform:
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You just need to run up, jump into your boots and put on:
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Computer club. Probably, when the station was built, it was relevant, but now everyone has laptops and comes here, I think, to play games online. There is no Wi-Fi at the station, but there is personal Internet access at a speed of 10 kb per second. Unfortunately, they didn’t give it to us, and I never managed to check in at the pole:
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Just like in the ANI camp, water is the most expensive commodity at the station. For example, it costs one and a half dollars to flush a toilet:
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Medical center:
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I looked up and looked at how perfectly the wires were laid out. Not like it happens here, and especially somewhere in Asia:
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The station houses the most expensive and most difficult to find souvenir shop in the world. A year ago, Evgeny Kaspersky was here, and he didn’t have cash (he wanted to pay with a card). When I went, Zhenya gave me a thousand dollars and asked me to buy everything in the store. Of course, I filled my bag with souvenirs, after which my fellow travelers began to quietly hate me, since I created a queue for half an hour.
By the way, in this store you can buy beer and soda, but they sell them only to station employees:
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There is a table with South Pole stamps. We all took our passports and stamped them:
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The station even has its own greenhouse and greenhouse. Now there is no need for them, since there is communication with the outside world. And in winter, when communication with the outside world is interrupted for several months, employees grow their own vegetables and herbs:
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Each employee has the right to use the laundry once a week. He can go to the shower 2 times a week for 2 minutes, that is, 4 minutes a week. I was told that they usually save everything and wash it once every two weeks. To be honest, I already guessed from the smell:
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Library:
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And this is a corner of creativity. There is everything you can imagine: sewing threads, paper and paints for drawing, prefabricated models, cardboard, etc. Now I really want to get to one of our polar stations and compare their life and amenities:
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At the historic South Pole there is a stick that has not changed since the days of the discoverers. And the marker for the geographic South Pole is moved every year to adjust for ice movement. The station has a small museum of knobs accumulated over the years:
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In the next post I will talk about the South Pole itself. Stay Tuned!
