Antarctica - Pictures, Facts, History and Travel

Maybe you've been to Antarctica to work or on a cruise and want to reminisce

Perhaps you haven't been but would love to travel to the Antarctic

Possibly you have no intention of going, but just think Antarctica is a cool place

If you like pictures - we've got stacks of pictures and photographic advice

You may have homework to do so you need facts about Antarctica or its animals

Maybe you're planning to travel to Antarctica on a cruise

Find out what you will see, where you'll go and what you need to take in the Antarctica travel guide

On This Day in Antarctica
Historical Events

Emperor penguin fact file

Whale species

Antarctic Pictures Gallery - The skies can be very clear and it feels like you can see forever in Antarctica some days, it's the windiest and highest continent as well as the coldest.

Pictures of Penguins

Antarctic Huskies

High Arctic Pictures
Thumbnails  Large Pictures

A Solar Pillar, Antarctica produces many atmospheric phenomena, this one is produced by tiny air-borne ice crystals reflecting the sun forming a pillar that moves from side to side with the observer.

Composite image of Antarctica and southern hemisphere, South America (top left), Africa (top right) and Australia / New Zealand (bottom right). The earth could never be viewed in this way as in reality one half of this view would be in daylight and the other in darkness.

Satellite Image of the Aurora Australis, Sept 11th 2005 - Photograph courtesy NASA

Sea ice forming in Antarctica from the shore - "sea smoke" can be seen in the distance - formed as temperatures plummet and exposed seawater meets the cold air.

Antarctica Travel - Send me trip details
Featured trips - Fly - Cruise Antarctica

Ice Breaker Penetrating the Ice Pack Standish Backus Watercolor on paper, 1956 "Pack ice is composed of massed fragments of sea ice drifting with wind and current. Modern Icebreakers such as Glacier, Edisto and Eastwind normally transit such ice fields without difficulty or loss of speed. However, thinned skinned vessels must be protected from ice pressures against their hulls. This may be accomplished by leading the escorted vessel through the dangerous areas with its bow lashed firmly into the notched stern of the icebreaker. Here Eastwind is represented towing YOG-34 through the Ross Sea pack, while overhead one of the helicopters scouts the ice conditions."

The Erebus glacier comes down the slopes of Mt. Erebus into the sea off the coast of Ross Island as an 11-12 km long ice tongue. It is a serrated, blue-rimmed "knife" extending into the snow and ice-covered McMurdo Sound. The smooth white expanse is the frozen Southern Ocean. Photograph courtesy  of NASA / GSFC / METI / ERSDAC / JAROS, and the U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team.