Incredible Facts About Antarctica That Are 100% True, But Hard to Believe (20 photos)

Antarctica is a huge southern continent that lives by its own bizarre laws. It has its own indescribable atmosphere. Do you know what time zone it belongs to? Are there people who were born there? And most importantly, are there polar bears there??





Antarctica is not just cold - it is interesting and very fun! Antarctica for the masses!

There are places in Antarctica where there has been no rain or snow for TWO MILLION YEARS



1% of Antarctica is not covered by ice. These are the so-called Antarctic oases and they are considered the harshest deserts in the world.

Antarctica has a unique waterfall called Blood Falls





This is not human blood at all. Due to the high iron oxide content, the stream flowing from the Taylor Glacier in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of East Antarctica has a blood-red hue.

More meteorites have been found in Antarctica than anywhere else on Earth



70% of all fresh water on the planet is located where? That's right, Antarctica



Antarctica does not belong to any time zone



Because Antarctica is largely uninhabited, the continent is not officially divided into time zones. However, a number of existing research stations use either the time zone of the country they are located in or the local time of countries nearby.

The average thickness of the ice sheet in Antarctica is 1 mile (1.6 km). Thick!



Icebergs can be really big. VERY big. The largest iceberg on record is larger than the area of ​​Jamaica



Iceberg B-15 is 11,000 square kilometers in area.

There are two cities in Antarctica inhabited by people (not emperor penguins)



There have been no sled dogs in Antarctica since 1994. They were all taken out



Scientists were afraid that they would transmit canine distemper to seals. Or they would simply interfere with the peaceful life of the local fauna.

There are over 300 lakes under the ice sheet of Antarctica



Obviously, the temperature record was recorded here: -98 °C



The conditions that can cause such low temperatures are dry air and clear skies that last for several days.

Antarctica was once a tropical continent, and it may become so again due to CO2 emissions. But not soon



The once green and fragrant Antarctica, inhabited by mammoths, may return to this state in a few hundred years. And all because of the constant burning of fossil fuels. As you understand, this is not good for us, humans.

Mount Erebus is the most active volcano on the planet. And the southernmost



Something is constantly seething inside him - he can’t calm down.

Antarctica, the Arctic, and a few other particularly remote islands are the only places on the planet not colonized by ants



If Antarctica were a country, it would be the second largest



Its area is 14,000,000 square kilometers.

And there are no reptiles in Antarctica and, what is especially nice, no snakes



By the way, the highest temperature recorded in Antarctica: +17.5 °C



Such warmth took place in 2015.

Bonus. On October 16, 2018, NASA discovered this amazingly smooth iceberg in Antarctica



There is even a term for them: “tabular icebergs.” They appear as a result of a larger iceberg breaking up. University of Maryland glaciologist Kelly Brant explains their appearance by giving an example: a fingernail that grows too long eventually begins to crack, and its breakup is characterized by straight lines.

Bonus 2. Contrary to popular belief, there are no polar bears in Antarctica. They live in the Arctic



The thoughts of the bears in the picture: “I wish I could take a vacation and go to Antarctica!”