Coldest spot on Earth...
Is Antarctica as cold as a freezer? Lidia Jean, 4th grade, Takoma
Park, Maryland
 Adelie
penguins, Antarctica. Photo courtesy of Commander John Bortniak,
NOAA.
It's even colder. Your home freezer is about 0 degrees Fahrenheit (-18C). At the 2-mile
(3-km) high Vostok Station in Antarctica, scientists recorded the world's lowest
temperature: -129 degrees Fahrenheit (-89C) on July 21, 1983.
Antarctica is the coldest, highest, driest, windiest place on Earth. It is so
cold, the body fluids of tiny mites and midges there have an antifreeze liquid
called glycerol that protects them when temperatures plummet as low as -30F
(-34C).
You can get colder in our solar system. Go to Neptune's moon, Triton. The
Voyager 2 space probe flew by Triton in 1989 and measured the coldest
temperature ever recorded: -390F (-234C). Triton is a strange moon — dark, frozen and
covered with salmon-pink snow made of nitrogen. Our dim sun shines like a
Venus-bright star there and sheds little warmth but enough power to shoot icy
geysers miles into Triton's mauve-colored sky.
Click for printer version.
Further Reading
World's
lowest temperature, World Meteorological Organization & Arizona State
University
British Antarctica
Survey
(Answered January 2000; updated Dec. 14, 2007)
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