{"id":5586,"date":"2013-03-08T16:57:57","date_gmt":"2013-03-08T16:57:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/SchoolTutoring.com\/help\/?p=5586"},"modified":"2014-12-02T08:27:04","modified_gmt":"2014-12-02T08:27:04","slug":"antarctica-earths-last-frontier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/help\/antarctica-earths-last-frontier\/","title":{"rendered":"Antarctica: Earth’s Last Frontier"},"content":{"rendered":"

Overview:\u00a0 A Frozen Desert<\/strong>
\nThe continent of Antarctica contains the South Pole, and is the coldest place on Earth.\u00a0 Scientists from around the world have research bases and conduct experiments in a frozen, extremely inhospitable environment where the temperatures are over 100 degrees below zero in the winter.\u00a0 Antarctica is a desert with high mountain ranges, and ice sheets that range from one to two miles thick.<\/p>\n

The Discovery of Antarctica<\/strong>
\nThe ancient Greeks believed that a southern land existed to balance the rest of the landmasses around the world.\u00a0 During the 17th century, South America and Australia were candidates for that mythical continent.\u00a0 It wasn’t until the 1800s that Antarctica was discovered and used as a base by whalers and a few explorers.\u00a0 Scientists learned that the continent was a good place to study extreme weather conditions, geology, and astronomy.\u00a0 There are several isolated observatories in Antarctica, where astrophysicists study background radiation and make observations they cannot make anywhere else but in outer space,<\/p>\n

Frozen Lakes Below the Surface<\/strong>
\nScientists have discovered a huge network of frozen lakes that lie beneath the surface of the ice-covered continent.\u00a0 They mapped the lakes by using radar from planes and from satellites.\u00a0 Before they had an aerial view of Antarctica, no one knew those lakes existed.\u00a0 Some of them may be connected with each other, and flow to the ocean.\u00a0 These lakes have not had direct contact with the atmosphere or direct sunlight since the ice sheets covered them.<\/p>\n

Drilling Technology Used to Get Samples<\/strong>
\nRecently, in 2013, NASA scientists have successfully been able to drill through the ice sheet to get samples of one of the lakes below the surface.\u00a0 They built a special drill that used hot water.\u00a0 Filters were developed In order to protect samples from being contaminated, and all the instruments were cleaned and disinfected with surgical precision.\u00a0 It is very important \u00a0to rule out any possibility of contamination under such extreme conditions.<\/p>\n

Mini-Submarine Explores the Lake Under the Ice Sheet<\/strong>
\nA special submarine with video cameras, chemical sensors, and other instruments explored beneath the lake surface.\u00a0 It was designed to go through the hole made by the drill and send back pictures to the team waiting at one of the science stations.\u00a0 Scientists were able to map the lake floor and verify that the rest of their equipment would be safe.\u00a0 They collected water samples and discovered bacteria that were able to live under extreme conditions.\u00a0 Studies of the data collected in these experiments will occupy scientists for many years to come.<\/p>\n

Interested in Science tutoring services<\/a>? Learn more about how we are assisting thousands of students each academic year.<\/p>\n

SchoolTutoring Academy<\/span> is the premier educational services company for K-12 and college students. We offer tutoring programs for students in K-12, AP classes, and college. To learn more about how we help parents and students in Tempe, AZ visit: Tutoring in Tempe, AZ<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Overview:\u00a0 A Frozen Desert The continent of Antarctica contains the South Pole, and is the coldest place on Earth.\u00a0 Scientists from around the world have research bases and conduct experiments in a frozen, extremely inhospitable environment where the temperatures are over 100 degrees below zero in the winter.\u00a0 Antarctica is a desert with high mountain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,16],"tags":[106,545,1004,1750],"class_list":["post-5586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-earth-sciences","category-science","tag-antarctica","tag-drilling","tag-lakes","tag-submarine"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/help\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}