South Pole

The South Pole is the the southernmost point on the surface of the Earth. It is located in Antarctica and is the center of the Southern Hemisphere.

On January 9, 1909 Ernest Shackleton, leading the Nimrod Expedition, reached a new Farthest South latitude of 88° 23' S, around 97 nautical miles (180 km) from the South Pole. They fell short of reaching the South Pole due to a shortage of food and fuel and challenging conditions.

Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team left in August 1910 intending to beat the Englishman Robert Falcon Scott, to become the first men to reach the South Pole.

On December 14, 1911 Amundsen and his men arrived at the South Pole and planted the Norwegian flag beating Scott by 34 days.

Amundsen's party at the South Pole, December 1911

Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition reached the South Pole on January 17, 1912, only to find that Roald Amundsen's team had arrived there a month earlier.

American explorer Richard Evelyn Byrd is credited with being the first person to fly over the South Pole. On November 29, 1929, Byrd, along with pilot Bernt Balchen and two other crew members, took off from their base on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica and flew 1,575 miles to the South Pole and back in 18 hours and 41 minutes. Their aircraft, a Ford Trimotor monoplane named "Floyd Bennett," was equipped with a variety of instruments, including compasses, sextants, and airspeed indicators, which helped them navigate the treacherous polar environment.

Igloo, a Wire Fox Terrier flew traveled everywhere with Admiral Byrd in the 1920s, including flying over the South Pole.

Today there is an American science base at the South Pole, which is named the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station to honor the two explorers. Established in 1956, it has been permanently staffed since that year. The buildings are raised on stilts to prevent snow build up.

Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station.  By Bill Henriksen, 

On October 31, 1956 humans set foot at the South Pole for the first time since Captain Robert F. Scott and his team in 1912, when a party led by Admiral George J. Dufek of the US Navy landed there in an R4D-5L Skytrain) aircraft.

Sir Edmund Hillary became the first explorer to reach the South Pole overland since Captain Robert F. Scott on January 4, 1958, The New Zealander — along with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay — had become the first man to reach the 29,035ft summit of Everest five years earlier.

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin is the oldest person to ever reach the South Pole, having visited it in November 2016 at the age of 86 

The Geographic South Pole is marked by a stake in the ice alongside a small sign; these are repositioned each year in a ceremony on New Year's Day to compensate for the movement of the ice.

The Ceremonial South Pole as of February 2008.

The Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in the South Pole recorded temperatures of 7.5 °F (-13.6 °C), making it the highest temperature to ever be recorded in the South Pole.

Since all the longitude lines meet in Antarctica, the South Pole has no specific time zone. The South Pole has only one research station (US-owned), and they use New Zealand time because researchers fly in from Christchurch.

Because of the amount of ice it sits on, the South Pole actually has an elevation of 9,300 ft. (2800m) and people have had to be evacuated due to altitude sickness.

At the South Pole, the Sun does not set in December.

The South Pole has a desert climate. It almost never gets any precipitation. However, high winds can cause the blowing of snowfall, and the accumulation of snow amounts to about 20 cm (7.9 in) per year.

New York City gets 15 times as much snow as the South Pole.