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My Eight Hours at the South Pole
| Article
# : |
10401 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1986 |
1,295 Words |
| Author
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Walter Froehlich
Walter Froehlich is vice president of the American
Astronautical Society and a veteran space writer residing in
Washington, D.C. |
Antarctica! Utopia for scientists! Dreamland for journalists!
The article on Antarctica in this issue kindled nostalgic thoughts and fond memories. My mind wandered back to my own three-day tour of Antarctic twelve years ago that included an eight-hour visit to the South Pole. This brief stay at the pole still ranks as a supreme moment in my 35-year career in the journalistic subspecialty of science writing.
I was standing at the very end of the earth, at the only location from which one can go no farther south without leaving the earth's surface. All around me in all directions to the horizon stretched a flat, featureless, monotonous desert of ice and snow. Everywhere I looked was north. The nearest land was two miles away--straight down beneath a 9,000-foot-thick blanket of ice and snow. The South Pole sits on a high ice plateau where the air is thin and, as at other high-altitude places, one can get dizzy or lightheaded.
All time zones converge here. One can walk in a small circle around the pole, and with every step be in a different time zone. Crews who stay at the South Pole could set their watches at any hour and be correct. For convenience, however, they use New Zealand time to coordinate their schedules with colleagues at the offices of the U.S. Antarctic Research Program at Christchurch, New Zealand.
The average annual temperature at the South Pole is a superfrigid minus 56 degrees Fahrenheit. During the Antarctic winter, thermometer readings below minus 100 degrees F are not unusual. Even during the warmest Antarctic summer day, readings at the South Pole remain well below freezing.
The sun rises and sets only once a year. In winter it never peeks above the horizon, leaving the South Pole in a six-month-long night. In summer the sun circles several degrees above the horizon 24 hours each day.
Partly because of its desolation and isolation and partly because of its unique location, the Antarctic, including the South Pole, is a Garden of Eden for scientific researchers. For that reason, it is also a wonderland for science writers like myself. I was surrounded by research projects suitable for feature treatment in newspapers and magazines.
At this unique outpost, scientists engage in basic research in astronomy,
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