October 14, 2026
When the Southern Cross expedition sailed south in 1898, its ambitions extended beyond exploration. The expedition also set out to collect scientific evidence from a continent whose natural history remained largely unknown.
October 12, 2026
On the eastern edge of Ross Island, beneath the cliffs of Cape Crozier, lies one of Antarctica's most famous wildlife colonies. Today it is known as one of the world's largest emperor penguin breeding sites.
October 11, 2026
The Antarctic ozone hole has remained unusually large through the 2026 austral spring season, drawing renewed attention from scientists and the wider public.
China has proposed a new marine protected area in East Antarctica's Cosmonauts Sea, combining conservation measures with seasonal krill fishing and a fixed 20-year lifespan.
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to physicist Francis Halzen for his leadership in creating the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a remarkable scientific facility buried deep within the Antarctic ice.
Deception Island is often remembered as a convenient harbour for sealers, but in 1829 it briefly became something far more unusual: one of Antarctica’s earliest scientific field laboratories. During the voyage of HMS Chanticleer, Royal Navy officer and scientist Henry Foster transformed the volcanic island into a site for experiments designed to measure the Earth itself.
Hidden beneath the ice of East Antarctica lies one of the continent's greatest mysteries and potentially one of its most significant climate threats. The Wilkes Subglacial Basin, a vast depression buried beneath kilometres of ice, remains among the least explored regions in Antarctica despite holding enough ice to raise global sea levels by an estimated three to four metres if widespread retreat were to occur.
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.