Showing posts with label North Pole. Show all posts
Showing posts with label North Pole. Show all posts

August 3 - First Watercraft to Reach North Pole

    Posted on August 3, 2022     


This is an update of my post published on August 3, 2011:




The USS Nautilus was the world's first operational nuclear-powered submarine. Because of her nuclear propulsion, she was able to remain submerged much longer than diesel-electric submarines, and so she was able to break many records and establish many firsts. One of her most famous exploits was achieved on this day in 1958, as the submarine reached the geographical North Pole.

The submarine began this West Coast voyage, called Operation Sunshine, in April of that year, and she tried to enter the Arctic Ocean in mid-June. However, there was deep draft ice that made it too dangerous. The Nautilus went all the way to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii to wait for better ice conditions. In late July, it was deemed safe to try again, so the Nautilus traveled north again and submerged in the Barrow Sea Valley on August 1. The submarine reached the North Pole on August 3 and continued on another 96 hours (4 days) until she could surface northeast of Greenland.





This is the USS Providence celebrating
the 50th anniversary of the Nautilus's
polar crossing--in the Arctic Ocean, of
course!


What is the geographical North Pole?

It is the point in the northern half of Earth where the planet's axis of rotation meets its surface.

On a globe, it is the spot where the upper portion of the metal rod around which the globe spins emerges from the Earth's sphere and attaches to the globe's stand.


The South Pole, of course, is the point in the southern half of Earth where the axis of rotation meets the surface. And on a globe it is the spot where the lower portion of the rod emerges.


Did you know...?

  • The North Pole is defined as the northernmost point on Earth. It lies exactly opposite the South Pole, which is the southernmost point on Earth.
  • The North Pole lies in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, although that ocean is sometimes covered in ice, and the South Pole is in the middle of the ice-covered land mass that is Antarctica.
  • Earth has a slight wobble in its spin. For this reason, the North Pole isn't in one fixed location—but instead it ranges around a few meters.
  • The Magnetic North Pole is the point on Earth's Northern Hemisphere at which Earth's magnetic field points downwards. It is not the same spot as the Geographic North Pole, and it slowly changes over time. The Magnetic North Pole was in Canada in 2001, and it has been moving toward Russia more than 30 miles (more than 55 kilometers) per year! (Learn more here.)







Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,

April 6 - Reaching the North Pole! (But...Really?)

Posted on April 6, 2020

Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, polar exploration was of great interest to people. Phrases such as "the ends of the Earth" and "the most remote corners of the world" make no sense when talking about a roughly spherical planet - and yet still make a kind of sense because our human scale on the planet makes it feel flat...and people were fascinated by the concept of visiting places never before seen.

Finding the geographic North Pole would
be easier if it was located exactly where
the magnetic North Pole is located.
But it's not.
Of course, using the sky and navigational instruments to determine location - where EXACTLY is the geographical North and South Pole? - made conquering these particular goals even more difficult than ice and weather made them. 

Robert Peary was an American explorer and US Navy officer who led several expeditions to the North Pole. He set a new "Farthest North" record at the turn of the century (1902) but continued on until this date in 1909, when one of his scouts, Matthew Hensen, may have reached the North Pole slightly before the rest of the six-man group got there.


Peary communicated the news of this "first" - termed by many as a "discovery" - from Labrador. He made headlines! 

But at nearly the same time, a former expedition-mate, American explorer Dr. Frederick Cook, arrived back in civilization after more than a year of being missing and presumed dead on his own polar expedition. Cook also claimed to have reached the North Pole - but a whole year ahead of Perry, in April of 1908!

Above, Robert Peary
Below, Dr. Frederick Cook

It is not certain whether either Peary or Cook actually reached the exact spot we call the geographical North Pole. Both men claimed to have left notes (and in Peary's case, a strip from the American flag he took to the Pole) in tins buried in the ice, and neither note has ever been found. 

Of course, since the North Pole is located in an open ocean often covered by constantly-shifting sea ice, we would not be likely to find anything where it was once buried!


Both men showed daring in making polar expeditions, at any rate, no matter whether or not their claims were correct. Peary ended up getting the credit for the "discovery" - but some scholars question this. To read more about the controversy, check out this article in the Smithsonian. 

By the way, these days really rich people apparently sometimes travel to the North Pole - I guess for bragging rights? Or to see with their own two eyes something they have always heard about? 


The pictures below show a way to stay at the North Pole - for more than $100,000 a night!





Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

August 17 – Extraordinary Journeys Day

Posted on August 17, 2018

One thing you could do to
celebrate Extraordinary Journeys
Day is to read the Jules Verne
story collection!
The first spacecraft to transmit data from the surface of another planet - extraordinary!

The first ship to reach the North Pole - hard to do, because this was back when it was covered with ice!

The first balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Would you want to cross an entire ocean - with a balloon??

On this date in 1970, Venera 7 was launched by the Soviet Union, heading toward Venus. It later became the first
spacecraft to land on another planet AND the first spacecraft to transmit data from another planet's surface.

This was not without problems. By design, the lander remained attached to the interplanetary bus as long as possible so that the bus could cool the lander during the journey through Venus's thick atmosphere. When the lander ejected and opened its parachute, the parachute apparently failed. The lander ended up falling to the surface much quicker than planned - and therefore it hit the surface much harder than planned. 

The moment of impact, the spacecraft seemed to go silent. But, luckily, the recording tapes here on Earth still turned...just in case...A few weeks later, scientists reviewing the tapes discovered that there was a very weak signal, after all. The best guess is that the lander had bounced onto its side and left the antennae at the wrong angle to send a strong signal back to Earth.

Still, the weak signal told us that the lander had survived. And that the temperature on the surface of Venus was 475 degrees Celsius - that's 887 degrees Fahrenheit! - and THAT meant that there could be no liquid water on Venus, and that humans couldn't survive there.

This is an artist's idea of what the surface of Venus looks like.
Notice that it's hot-hot-hot!

So none of this:
Above and two below:
Back in the day, people imagined that
there might be creatures, even people,
on Venus....



Another big Soviet coup happened on this date in 1977, when the nuclear-powered icebreaker Arktika became the first surface ship to reach the North Pole.


The sudden, scary melting of Arctic sea ice has
scientists concerned. We need to work on reducing
global warming!!
The last extraordinary journey was completed on this date in 1978. This time, it was Americans daring to dare: three men piloted their balloon Double Eagle II from Maine to France. This first-ever balloon crossing of the Atlantic Ocean took a bit more than 137 hours!





The day before, on August 16, the men had had to give up their plans of hang gliding during the last bit of descent, because they had to drop the hang glider as ballast! Later, they crossed the Irish coast - and that right there made them the first to successfully cross the ocean in a balloon, even though they hadn't yet successfully landed! People at the Shannon Airport alerted the Double Eagle crew that they'd been spotted, but the balloonists continued on to France. 

Once there, authorities closed LeBourget Airfield so that the balloon could safely land there, and they radioed the crew with that offer. And that was a really nice offer - that's the place where Charles Lindbergh landed after his first solo transatlantic flight! But the balloon pilots knew that trying to make it all the way to that historic airfield would put them and others on the ground in danger. They were running out of ballast; they played it safe and landed in a field of barley near Miserey, rather than trying to make it to Paris.








Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)