Virtual Antarctica now on the Internet

This video says about itself:

We went to Antarctica. Aboard the Chilean expedtion ship “Antarctic Dream” in November 2006. We were very lucky to be able to spend 10 days in the last continent on earth.

From MSNBC in the USA:

Virtual Antarctica revealed in high definition

Database makes satellite views available to scientists and public over Web

An international science team unveiled a new high-definition, interactive map of Antarctica on Tuesday, capping an eight-year satellite mapping project.

The Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica, or LIMA, is the most geographically accurate depiction of the full continent ever made — and it’s being made freely available over the Web. …

But LIMA isn’t just for scientists: “Anyone with a Web connection can now travel to Antarctica in the virtual sense,” Bindschadler said.

Two Web sites have been set up to make the imagery available:

* LIMA.USGS.gov provides a zoomable, searchable viewer to see the satellite pictures from Landsat as well as from Canada’s Radarsat, a satellite that captures radar imagery of the same terrain. Different filters can be used to highlight subtle variations in color — a feature Bindschadler called the “sunglasses stretch.”

* LIMA.NASA.gov focuses on user-friendly education and outreach. The Web site puts Antarctic imagery in a scientific context and presents interactive extras such as “Antarctic Mysteries,” a quiz that invites users to identify odd-looking features from the LIMA database. A search tool links the NASA site to the USGS Web site.

See also here. And video here.

The sinking of Antarctic cruise ship Explorer: see here.

Lake Vostok: here.

The first Australian map of the entire Antarctic continent has become part of the National Archives collection: here.