Earth from Space: Ross Island, Antarctica
The icy landscape of Ross Island in Antarctica is featured in this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image from 3 February 2024, during the austral summer.
Zoom in to explore this image at its full 10 m resolution or click on the circles to learn more.
According to the orientation of the image, the geographic South Pole would be around 1350 km from the top of the image.
Ross Island, covering around 2460 sq km, lies in Eastern Antarctica at the edge of the vast Ross Ice Shelf, a small fraction of which is visible in the upper part of the image. The island was named after the British explorer Sir James Clark Ross, who discovered it in 1841 during his quest for the magnetic South Pole.
Four volcanoes form the island: Mount Bird, Mount Terra Nova, Mount Terror and Mount Erebus. Two can be seen clearly in the image: Mount Terror is on the left and Mount Erebus, the largest, is on the right.
Though its name suggests otherwise, Mount Terror is not as ominous as it might sound. Sir James Clark Ross named both Mount Terror and Mount Erebus after his ships, the HMS Terror and the HMS Erebus, of the 1841 expedition.
Mount Erebus is still active and is thought to be the southernmost active volcano in the world. Standing at 3276 m, it is the tallest peak on the island and is also one of a few volcanoes in the world that contain an active lava lake. The caldera forms a plateau at the summit of the volcano, where two craters can be spotted. While the smaller crater is inactive, the main crater holds a smaller, inner crater where the lava lake is located.
The jagged edges of the Erebus ice tongue can be seen stretching out into McMurdo Sound. The ice tongue is the forefront of a glacier that originates from the volcano's slopes.
Ross Island is also one of Antarctica's most important centres for scientific research. Both the US McMurdo Station and the New Zealand Scott Base are at the extreme tip of the long and narrow Hut Point Peninsula, visible in the upper part of the image.
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