What is polar exploration?
For a long time, for centuries, the sea has been the great protagonist in the conquest of the Poles. And in the case of the Arctic, given its condition as a frozen sea, ship expeditions followed one another to try to break through the ice and reach the North Pole trophy.
In this sense, polar exploration is the exploration of the lands around the North and also South poles. The poles are the coldest and most remote regions of the earth, the North Pole being located in the Arctic Ocean as we said before, covered by a huge wall of floating ice. It is the South Pole that is on land, on the frozen continent of Antarctica. It was the first explorers who arrived in these regions who began to prepare sleds that were pulled by dogs, or even tried to go on foot! Since this activity began, it was always somewhat risky and dangerous, since the ice would have huge cracks where, for example, dogs could get lost, or even sleds and people when performing polar explorationr .
For this reason, other explorers used ships, this type of vehicle being somewhat unstable at times, also due to the large amount of ice, which could mean the shipwreck of the ship. For this reason, explorers later began to use icebreakers: these are ships designed to facilitate the opening of the way in frozen seas. Likewise, they also used dirigible balloons, which are airships that float, airplanes and snowmobiles as soon as they appeared for it.
What are the reasons people started exploring these polar regions?
The first polar explorations were carried out for various reasons. Some explorers craved the recognition of being among the first to reach unknown lands, where no one had ever been before. However, what other explorers wanted was to be able to discover increasingly shorter navigation routes between Europe and East Asia, in order to facilitate all the activities that were already committed at that time with the goal of trade and relationships. On the other hand, in the case of polar exploration, there were also explorers who sought to enrich themselves by hunting seals and whales. In recent times, the regions have begun to be explored in the same way in order to gather scientific information, when many intrepid explorers lost their lives trying to achieve all these objectives.
As we said, exploration of the Arctic and all the regions that are inhabited by indigenous peoples has been going on for many years. It is very likely that the first foreigner was an ancient Greek named Pytheas. Pytheas arrived in Norway or Iceland around the 4th century BCE.C. Vikings from Norway traveled to Iceland and Greenland in the 9th and 10th centuries. By the 16th century, the Dutch and the English were already embarking on voyages to the Arctic in search of new trade routes. In 1878–79, a Swedish explorer, Baron Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, sailed from Europe to the Pacific Ocean via the Arctic Ocean. This route was called the Northeast Pass. In 1905, the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen became the first to navigate the Northwest Passage. It was a route that went from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, crossing the Arctic.American explorer Robert E. Peary claimed to have been the first to reach the North Pole in 1909.
Peary, Matthew Henson, and four Eskimos (Inuit) made the last leg of the sleigh ride. Later, some people questioned whether Peary had actually reached the pole. In 1926, Amundsen and two companions flew over the North Pole in a dirigible balloon. In 1937, a group of pilots from the Soviet Union flew over the North Pole to the United States. In 1958, a US submarine became the first ship to cross the North Pole below the Arctic ice cap. Definitely great historical facts about polar exploration!
POLAR EXPLORATION OF THE ARCTIC TODAY
However, exploration of the arctic has changed over the years. Zaria Forman, a Brooklyn-based artist and art conservator for the new National Geographic Endurance polar ship, is a case study in how traveling to the Arctic can transform a life. Forman's mother, who is a photographer, took her to Greenland for the first time in 2007. Until that trip, Forman "only knew about climate change as a distant subject," he says. But the visit opened his eyes to the problem, such as the ways in which the locals were forced to adapt their ways of life to the changes in their environment. Now he travels to the arctic regions at least one month at a time. There he photographs and draws areas with an "intriguing composition" and that evoke strong emotions to create large-scale cakes "as realistic as possible to convey that same sensation to the observer."
NOT ONLY THE ARCTIC IS EXPLORED: THE PHENOMENON OF ANTARCTICA
Several explorers saw Antarctica for the first time in 1820. The first landings on the mainland took place in 1895. British explorers Robert F. Scott and Ernest Henry Shackleton led expeditions in the early 20th century. Scott reached the South Pole on January 18, 1912. His goal was to be first. However, Roald Amundsen and four companions had reached the pole a month earlier, on December 14, 1911. Scott and his men died on the return trip. In 1928, the American explorer Richard E. Byrd established a base on an ice shelf off the coast of Antarctica. Byrd was the first to fly over the South Pole in 1929. Meanwhile, many countries began to take an interest in the scientific study of Antarctica. During 1957–58, scientists from various countries established 50 research bases throughout Antarctica. In 1959, some countries signed the Antarctic Treaty. This agreement reserves all of Antarctica exclusively for scientific research. The Antarctic continent, which is still unknown to many, never stops surprising with new discoveries and unsolved mysteries. How interesting is the topic of polar exploration!
Antarctica is an unexplored and mysterious place, which is why the results of each investigation or discovery generate a great impact. The origin of the continent is the main mystery. It is estimated that Antarctica (whose name means opposite of the arctic) froze at least 23 million years ago, many millions before the appearance of the first homo sapiens, which would refute the possibility that human beings populated it before its current frozen state. But so far that is not known for sure. The 'blood falls', craters of more than three kilometers, repetitive urban legends about UFOs and ice pyramids, unknown species. are some of the mysteries that exist on the frozen continent, the best place to carry out polar explorations.
The Antarctica is one of the last truly intact regions of the planet, do you know Ramón Larramendi? He is one of the most knowledgeable explorers and experts in polar territories in the world, here we tell you very interesting things about him! Since
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In
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