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Frozen In Time

Underwater photos of the Endurance show that it’s still in great shape, even after more than 100 years.
Credit: Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust/National Geographic

For more than 100 years, a ship called the Endurance was hidden under the icy waters near Antarctica. Now, the ship has been found. And it looks a lot like it did a century ago.

The Endurance was part of an expedition led by British explorer Ernest Shackleton. In August 1914, Shackleton and his crew set out to make the first land crossing of Antarctica. But trying to reach the frozen continent would almost prove to be deadly. In December, the Endurance became trapped in the ice-covered Weddell Sea. The ship drifted for 10 months before it got crushed by pack ice. For five more months, the crew camped on ice floes before escaping in lifeboats to a nearby island. By then, the Endurance had sunk into the sea.

On March 5, 2022, a team of researchers located the Endurance nearly 10,000 feet (3,008 meters) under water. It wasn’t easy. The team had to use a ship that’s designed to break through the ice that covers the Weddell Sea. They sent remote submarines under the water to search for the ship. It took more than two weeks to find the Endurance. No sunlight reaches the seafloor, making the environment extremely cold and dark.

But the cold water proved to be a very good thing. It kept the Endurance in remarkably good shape. Scientists say wood-eating worms often eat away at shipwrecks. But these worms can’t survive at the bottom of the freezing Weddell Sea. So the Endurance still looks a lot like it did during Shackleton’s lifetime.

Viewing photos of the ship is almost like going back in time.

Fun Fact

an Arctic tern flies over water with a glacier in the background
© Paul/stock.adobe.com

Each year the Arctic tern flies between the Arctic and Antarctica to take advantage of the long summer days at both ends of the world. During a 30-year lifespan, the tern travels almost as far as three times to the Moon and back.

Journey to the Ends of Earth

Exploring Antarctica and the Arctic has never been easy. 

Courtesy of the Royal Geographical Society; photograph, Underwood and Underwood, New York

The Next Frontier

Artist depiction of three humans in spacesuits on the surface of Mars

Credit: NASA

More than 100 years after Shackleton explored the bottom of our planet, scientists are exploring worlds beyond our own. NASA and private companies hope to send humans to Mars in the very near future—and some of them envision building a human colony on the Red Planet!

Game

Can you find 11 words about space?
O
O
O

WORD OF THE DAY

endurance

PART OF SPEECH:
noun
Syllabic representation:

en*dur*ance

Definition:

: the ability to do something difficult for a long time

 

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