Virtual Tour - South Pole

Welcome to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Research Station!

As you saw on the New Zealand page, the planes you take to the South Pole don't have wheels - they have skis! So, instead of a runway, there is a skiway. There is a geographic South Pole that is distinct from the ceremonial South Pole, and you can learn about that on the Poles page. During the winter, the winter-over crew live and eat in the dome, and in the summer many more people come down and live in the "summer camp." Most of the action, in any season, takes place in the dome. All of CARA's scientific instruments are housed in the CARA buildings. One of the several non-CARA-related science experiments at the Pole is the Atmospheric Research Observatory.

Click on things in this image to learn more about the region.

This graphic is based on the blueprint of the pole but is NOT to scale! Approximately, though, the distance between the Pole and the CARA buildings is 0.5 km (1800 feet).

We have on-line an aerial view of the South Pole Station (758k!) taken in 1983. (There is also a more managable [167k] version, which works just as well on most screens.) The dome is the big shiny object near the middle of this image, and the Jamesway tents are on the right. The ceremonial South Pole is on the lower left. The arches (straight line, tangent to the dome) are also visible here, but since this picture was taken, they have been completely buried by blowing snow.

The links to continue the virtual tour from this page are the skiway, the Poles page, the dome, the summer camp, the CARA buildings (Dark Sector), and the Atmospheric Research Observatory.

At this point the tour becomes much more "web like" than linear, so to make sure you've seen everything, check the virtual tour site map. Thanks for visiting!

Go back to the first Pole page.
Oops, I forgot something at McMurdo.

CARA's research and education programs are supported in part by the National Science Foundation under a cooperative agreement, grant number NSF OPP 89-20223. © Copyright 1998,1999,2000 by Center for Astrophysical Research in Antarctica. This copyright applies to all web pages and images created by CARA.