Important Facts About ANTARCTICA

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Antarctica is not only the coldest place on Earth but also the highest, driest, windiest and emptiest.
75 per cent of the world’s ice and 70 per cent of the Earth’s fresh water is located in Antarctica.
It is also called the White Continent or the Frozen Continent.
Before 1840, Antarctic was called ‘Terra Australis Incognita’ which meant ‘the unknown southern land’.
Antarctica sees half a year of light and half a year of complete darkness – summer months of December to February give 24 hours of light, while the winter months of late March to late September are pitch dark the whole day.

Summer temperatures in the Frozen Continent are around -35 degree C in the interior and 2 degree C at the coasts. In the winters, it is -70 degree C in the interior and 2 degree C at the coasts.
Antarctica saw the coldest natural temperature ever recorded on Earth was -89 degree C.
Because of this sort of extreme temperature fluctuations, Antarctica is larger in winters by around 14.2 million square kilometers than in summers due to the ice formation around the periphery.
Nothing can rot in the icy waters of Antarctica.

There are no time zones on this continent.
The largest land animal in Antarctica is a 1.3 cm long insect known as Belgica Antarctica
The only permanent settlements in Antarctica are the research bases where scientists from different countries come to do their work.
Penguins are home in Antractica and Adelie penguins are the most common kind found here.
There is no coastal plain.
It is the fifth largest continent.

Two broad inlets, the Weddel Sea and the Ross Sea and the Trans-Antarctic Mountains which cross the entire continent divide the land into West Antarctica and East Antarctica.
The valleys between the mountain ranges are dry, windy, frozen and barren and called Oases.
Vinson Massif in the Ellsworth Mountains is the highest peak of Antarctica.

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