Antarctica, as we know today, is largely an icy, flat desert. Snow and ice form an almost endless expanse around the South Pole. The Antarctic ice sheet, the largest mass of ice on earth, stretches millions of square kilometers across the country.
For a long time, people's idea of the southern continent was very different. This is related to an event that happened almost 180 years ago. It was to shape the image of the Antarctic in the world for a long time: When the famous British explorer Sir James Clark Ross went on an expedition through the Southern Ocean in January 1841, he discovered powerful volcanoes on an island. The highest towered almost 3800 meters into the sky - it can be seen on the satellite image above.
The crews of Ross research ships HMS "Erebus" and "HMS Terror" witnessed an outbreak of the giant. They enthusiastically described the eruptions in their notebooks. The descriptions in the later published reports made Antarctica a region of fire and ice, in which powerful volcanoes dominate the landscape. The picture lasted a long time.
photo gallery
29 images
Satellite image of the week: snapshots from spaceRoss even named two of the volcanoes after his two ships. Mount Erebus is still the southernmost active volcano on earth and has been active continuously for decades. A lava lake glows in its crater. Occasionally gas bubbles rise in it, the lake begins to boil. Melted rocks can be thrown up hundreds of meters.
The picture above was taken by the NASA earth observation satellite "Terra", it was taken from an altitude of 700 kilometers. The data comes from the satellite's "aster" instrument. It records images in 14 different spectral channels - from the range of visible light to thermal infrared. The Nasa researchers then compose an image from the information.
On the morning of October 19, when it was taken, the angle of the sun was still very low, illuminating only the eastern slopes of the volcano. It cast a mighty shadow to the west.
MORE ON THE SUBJECT
Despite its remote location in the very south, researchers regularly study Erebus activity. The Americans run the largest research facility in Antarctica just 35 kilometers away. At the McMurdo station, dozens of scientists live in one of the most remote small towns on earth with average annual temperatures below minus 15 degrees Celsius.
Mount Erebus gained some notoriety, also because a tragic plane crash with many deaths occurred here in 1979. During a sightseeing flight, an Air New Zealand plane crashed into the mountain, killing all 257 people on board.
But the Erebus is not the only outstanding landmark on the continent. It is only in 18th place on the list of the highest Antarctic mountains. Mount Vinson leads the ranking and is a good 1000 meters higher. Antarctica is not that flat.