Antarctic

The cutting-edge polar research ship the RRS Sir David Attenborough – otherwise known as "Boaty McBoatface" – has finally set sail from its shipyard. It will now be put through trials before being officially handed over for service later this year.

A new genomic study has homed in on exactly when and where modern penguins originated, suggesting the birds first appeared in Australian and New Zealand waters about 22 million years ago before later spreading south into the cooler Antarctic waters.

A few years ago researchers discovered bacteria in Antarctica that could survive on nothing but air. Now the team has found evidence of this handy ability in other cold desert locations. The finding could have implications for life beyond Earth.

A team of scientists from the British Antarctic Survey has used satellite imagery of penguin poop captured by ESA's Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission to calculate there are 20 percent more emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica than previously thought.

Balloons may seem outdated, but for high-flying scientific instruments they’re making a comeback. NASA has now unveiled ASTHROS, a new infrared telescope that will be carried to the edge of space by a balloon the size of a football stadium.

A team of astronomers has identified what may be the best spot on Earth to stick a telescope. A high plateau in eastern Antarctica would have an exceptionally clear view of the stars, even outperforming other locations on the polar continent.

On 12 July 2017, one of the biggest icebergs ever seen broke off from the Antarctic mainland. Now on the third anniversary of the event, satellite data has shown that the berg has traveled over 1,000 km (620 mi) and managed to stay relatively intact

Scientists have uncovered an accelerated heating trend taking place at the South Pole, with 30 years of weather data revealing the region has warmed at more than three times the global rate since 1989.

An international team of scientists has found that the summer sea ice in the Weddell Sea off the coast of Antarctica is diminishing. Since 2015, the ice cover has decreased by one million km² and could pose a threat to local marine life.

A strange fossil discovered in Antarctica almost a decade ago has finally been identified. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have determined that the object is a giant, soft-shell egg, most likely laid by an ancient marine reptile.

Headlines lately have been screaming about how scientists in Antarctica have discovered evidence of a parallel universe where time runs backwards. While we seriously wish that was true, a new study has put forward a more realistic explanation.

Much of Earth has been steadily warming, which we now understand is a product of climate change. But in parts of the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, sea surfaces cooled considerably since the early 1980s. And now, scientists think they know why.