Indian scientists leave for South Pole

PANJIM, NOV 2
A team of Indian scientists have left for an expedition on South Pole from Goa today afternoon to analyze its environmental changes over the past one-thousand years.
The 40-day expedition comprises of eight members was flagged off from Vasco-based National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR), which will expand India’s research capabilities on this icy continent.
“This is our third team to Antarctica from where we will proceed to South Pole, which is the first time in the research history,” NCAOR Director Rasik Ravindra, who heads the expedition team, told Herald.
The scientist said they have received cooperation from international agencies and that they are in regular touch with Americans. The team reached Mumbai in the evening from where it left for Cape Town in South Africa to fly to the Indian research station ‘Maitri.’
“We will travel upto 1,200 feet to the South Pole and carry out various experiments enroute to analyze climatic and other changes over the past 1000 years there,” he further said.
Maitri station is currently operational and located almost 8,000 kilometres away from the new Indian research station ‘Bharti’ on Larseman Hill in Antartica.
The scientists will record humidity, temperature, wind speed and atmospheric pressure in South Pole. On their return, the team will bring back air and rock samples to be tested in the NCAOR laboratory.
The historical expedition comes nearly 99 years after humans first landed in the South Pole and 30 years after India’s first expedition to Antarctica.
A team of 25 scientists including the only Goan researcher Rakesh Rao have already left for Antartica in a bid to start third Indian research station ‘Bharti’.
The researcher will be documenting new research station construction, which is planned just eight kilometers away from stations of world’s two significant countries – China and Russia.