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Antarctica

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Fur seals sunning themselves on a beach.
More than twenty countries operate year-round scientific research stations that house roughly 1,100 researchers in the winter and about 4,400 researchers in the summer.
A Chinstrap penguin rookery. These penguins derive their name from the narrow black band under their heads that make it appear as if they are wearing black helmets. They build a circular nest with stones and lay two eggs.
Gentoo penguins nesting. The distinguishing feature of these penguins is the wide white stripe across the top of the head that in some ways resembles a bonnet.
Adelie penguins at Brown Bluff at the end of the Tabarin Peninsula.
LeMaire Channel between Booth Island and the Antarctic Peninsula.
The blue ice covering Lake Fryxell, in the Transantarctic Mountains, comes from glacial meltwater from the Canada Glacier and other smaller glaciers. Image courtesy of National Science Foundation.
A view of McMurdo Station, a US Antarctic research station on the south tip of Ross Island that is operated by the United States Antarctic Program, a branch of the National Science Foundation. The station is the largest community in Antarctica, capable of supporting some 1,250 residents and serves as one of three year-round US Antarctic science facilities. All personnel and cargo going to or coming from Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station first pass through McMurdo. Image courtesy of Gaelen Marsden, University of British Columbia.
Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in the 2007-2008 summer season. In the foreground is the ceremonial South Pole and the flags for the original 12 signatory nations to Antarctic Treaty. Photo courtesy of the National Science Foundation/ Bill Spindler.
The aurora australis — the Southern Lights — as seen over the National Science Foundation's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The eerie visual effect arises when charged particles blown off by the sun (the solar wind) are caught in the Earth's magnetic field and travel along the field lines, colliding with molecules of oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere. Image courtesy of the National Science Foundation, Jonathan Berry.
Sea ice is seen out the window of NASA's DC-8 research aircraft as it flies 600 m (2,000 ft) above the Bellingshausen Sea in West Antarctica. Photo courtesy of NASA.
Emperor penguins huddling near Erebus Bay. Photo courtesy of the US Geologic Survey/ William A. Link.
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