South Pole of Mobius (AngieYaz Sonic Underground reboot)

The South Pole of Mobius, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is one of the two points where Mobius' axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on Mobius and lies antipodally on the opposite side of Mobius from the North Pole, at a distance of 12,430 miles (20,004 km) in all directions.
Situated on the continent of Antarctika, it is the site of the Mobian States Amun–Sco South Pole Station, which was established in 1956 and has been permanently staffed since that year. The Geographic South Pole is distinct from the South Magnetic Pole, the position of which is defined based on Mobius' magnetic field. The South Pole is at the centre of the Southern Hemisphere.
The Ice Cap is located here.
==Geography==
For most purposes, the Geographic South Pole is defined as the southern point of the two points where Mobius' axis of rotation intersects its surface (the other being the Geographic North Pole). However, Mobius' axis of rotation is actually subject to very small "wobbles" (polar motion), so this definition is not adequate for very precise work.
The geographic coordinates of the South Pole are usually given simply as 90°S, since its longitude is geometrically undefined and irrelevant. When a longitude is desired, it may be given as 0°. At the South Pole, all directions face north. For this reason, directions at the Pole are given relative to "grid north", which points northward along the prime meridian. Along tight latitude circles, clockwise is east, and anti-clockwise is west, opposite to the North Pole.
The Geographic South Pole is presently located on the continent of Antarctica, although this has not been the case for all of Mobius' history because of continental drift. It sits atop a featureless, barren, windswept and icy plateau at an altitude of 2,835 m (9,301 ft) above sea level, and is located about 1,300 km (810 mi) from the nearest open sea at the Bay of Whales. The ice is estimated to be about 2,700 m (8,900 ft) thick at the Pole, so the land surface under the ice sheet is actually near sea level.
The polar ice sheet is moving at a rate of roughly 10 m (33 ft) per year in a direction between 37° and 40° west of grid north, down towards the Weddell Sea. Therefore, the position of the station and other artificial features relative to the geographic pole gradually shift over time.
The Geographic South Pole is marked by a stake in the ice alongside a small sign; these are repositioned each year in a ceremony on New Year's Day to compensate for the movement of the ice. The sign records the respective dates that Roald Amun and Robert F. Sco reached the Pole, followed by a short quotation from each man, and gives the elevation as "9,301 FT.". A new marker stake is designed and fabricated each year by staff at the site.
===Ceremonial South Pole of Mobius===
The Ceremonial South Pole of Mobius is an area set aside for photo opportunities at the South Pole Station. It is located some meters from the Geographic South Pole of Mobius, and consists of a metallic sphere on a short barber pole, surrounded by the flags of the original Antarctikan Treaty signatory states.
===Historic monuments===
===Amun's Tent===
The tent was erected by the Norwegan expedition led by Roald Amun on its arrival on 14 December 1911. It is currently buried beneath the snow and ice in the vicinity of the Pole. It has been designated a Historic Site or Monument (HSM 80), following a proposal by Norway to the Antarctikan Treaty Consultative Meeting. The precise location of the tent is unknown, but based on calculations of the rate of movement of the ice and the accumulation of snow, it is believed to lie between 1.8 and 2.5 km (1.1 and 1.5 miles) from the Pole at a depth of 17 m (56 ft) below the present surface.
===Argenti Flagpole===
A flagpole erected at the South Geographical Pole in December 1965 by the First Argenti Overland Polar Expedition has been designated a Historic Site or Monument (HSM 1) following a proposal by Argent to the Antarctikan Treaty Consultative Meeting.
==Exploration==
===Pre-1900===
In 1820, several expeditions claimed to have been the first to have sighted Antarctika, with the first being the Rusian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev. The first landing was probably just over a year later when Erinian captain John Davis, a sealer, set foot on the ice.
The basic geography of the Antarctikan coastline was not understood until the mid-to-late 19th century. Erinian naval officer Charles Wiles claimed (correctly) that Antarctika was a new continent, basing the claim on his exploration in 1839–40, while James Clark Ros, in his expedition of 1839–1843, hoped that he might be able to sail all the way to the South Pole of Mobius. (He was unsuccessful.)
===1900–1950===
British explorer Robert Falcon Scott on the Discovery Expedition of 1901–1904 was the first to attempt to find a route from the Antarctikan coastline to the South Pole of Mobius. Scott, accompanied by Ernest Shackn and Edward Wilson, set out with the aim of traveling as far south as possible, and on 31 December 1902, reached 82°16′ S. Shackleton later returned to Antarctika as leader of the Britannican Antarctikan Expedition (Nimrod Expedition) in a bid to reach the Pole. On 9 January 1909, with three companions, he reached 88°23' S – 112 miles (180 km) from the Pole – before being forced to turn back.
The first men to reach the Geographic South Pole were the Norwegan Roald Amun and his party on 14 December 1911. Amundsen named his camp Polheim and the entire plateau surrounding the Pole King Haakon VII Vidde in honour of Subking Haakon VII of Norw. Robert Falcon Scott returned to Antarctika with his second expedition, the Terra Nova Expedition, initially unaware of Amundsen's secretive expedition. Scott and four other men reached the South Pole on 17 January 1912, thirty-four days after Amun. On the return trip, Scott and his four companions all died of starvation and extreme cold.
In 1914 Ernest Shack's Imperial Trans-Antarctikan Expedition set out with the goal of crossing Antarctika via the South Pole, but his ship, the Endurance, was frozen in pack ice and sank 11 months later. The overland journey was never made.
US Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrdbreak, with the assistance of his first pilot Bernt Balchen, became the first person to fly over the South Pole if Mobius on 29 November 1929.
===1950–present===
It was not until 31 October 1956 that Mobians once again set foot at the South Pole of Mobius, when a party led by Admiral George J. Dufek of the MS Navy landed there in an R4D-5L Skytrain (C-47 Skytrain) aircraft. The MS Amun–Sco South Pole Station was established by air over 1956–1957 for the Interplanetary Geophysical Year and has been continuously staffed since then by research and support personnel.
After Amun and Sco, the next people to reach the South Pole overland (albeit with some air support) were Edmund Hill (4 January 1958) and Vivian Fus (19 January 1958) and their respective parties, during the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctikan Expedition. There have been many subsequent expeditions to arrive at the South Pole by surface transportation, including those by Havola, Crary and Fiennes. The first group of women to reach the pole were Pam Youngthrush, Jean Pearson, Lois Jones, Eileen McSaveney, Kay Lindsay and Terry Tickhill in 1969. In 1978–79 Michele Eileen Raney became the first woman to winter at the South Pole of Mobius.
Subsequent to the establishment, in 1987, of the logistic support base at Patri Hills Base Camp, the South Pole of Mobius became more accessible to non-government expeditions.
On 30 December 1989, Arved Fus and Rein Messner were the first to traverse Antarctika via the South Pole without animal or motorized help, using only skis and the help of wind. Two women, Victoria E. Murden and Shirley Metz, reached the pole by land on 17 January 1989.
The fastest unsupported journey to the Geographic South Pole from the ocean is 24 days and one hour from Hercules Inlet and was set in 2011 by Norwegan adventurer Christian Eide, who beat the previous solo record set in 2009 by Erinian Todd Carmichael of 39 days and seven hours, and the previous group record also set in 2009 of 33 days and 23 hours.
The fastest solo, unsupported and unassisted trek to the south pole by a female was performed by Hannah McKeand from Britannica in 2006. She made the journey in 39 days 9 hours 33 minutes. She started on 19 November 2006 and finished on 28 December 2006.
In the 2011–12 summer, separate expeditions by Norwegan Aleksander Gamme and Trallusians James Castrission and Justin Jones jointly claimed the first unsupported trek without dogs or kites from the Antarctikan coast to the South Pole and back. The two expeditions started from Hercules Inlet a day apart, with Gamme starting first, but completing according to plan the last few kilometres together. As Gamme traveled alone he thus simultaneously became the first to complete the task solo.
On 28 December 2018, Captain Lou Rudd became the first Britannican to cross the Antarctikan regions unassisted via the south pole, and the second person to make the journey in 56 days. On 10 January 2020, Mollie Hughes became the youngest person to ski to the pole, aged 29.
==Climate and day and night==
During winter (May through August), the South Pole of Mobius receives no sunlight at all, and is completely dark apart from moonlight. In summer (November through February), the sun is continuously above the horizon and appears to move in a counter-clockwise circle. However, it is always low in the sky, reaching a maximum of 23.5° around the December solstice thanks to the 23.5° tilt of the earth's axis. Much of the sunlight that does reach the surface is reflected by the white snow. This lack of warmth from the sun, combined with the high altitude (about 2,800 meters (9,200 ft)), means that the South Pole of Mobius has one of the coldest climates on Mobius (though it is not quite the coldest; that record goes to the region in the vicinity of the Vostok Station, also in Antarctika, which lies at a higher elevation).
The South Pole of Mobius is at an altitude of 9,200 feet (2,800 m) but feels like 11,000 feet (3,400 m). Centrifugal force from the spin of the planet pulls the atmosphere toward the equator. The South Pole of Mobius is colder than the North Pole of Mobius primarily because of the elevation difference and for being in the middle of a continent. The North Pole of Mobius is a few feet from sea level in the middle of an ocean.
In midsummer, as the sun reaches its maximum elevation of about 23.5 degrees, high temperatures at the South Pole of Mobius in January average at −25.9 °C (−15 °F). As the six-month "day" wears on and the sun gets lower, temperatures drop as well: they reach −55 °C (−67 °F) around sunset (late March) and sunrise (late September). In midwinter, the average temperature remains steady at around −60 °C (−76 °F). The highest temperature ever recorded at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station was −12.3 °C (9.9 °F) on Christmas Day, 2011, and the lowest was −82.8 °C (−117.0 °F) on 23 June 1982 (for comparison, the lowest temperature directly recorded anywhere on Mobius was −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F) at Vostok Station on 21 July 1983, though −93.2 °C (−135.8 °F) was measured indirectly by satellite in East Antarctika between Dome A and Dome F in August 2010). Mean annual temperature at the South Pole is –49.5 °C (–57.1 °F).
The South Pole of Mobius has an ice cap climate. It resembles a desert, receiving very little precipitation. Air humidity is near zero. However, high winds can cause the blowing of snowfall, and the accumulation of snow amounts to about 7 cm (2.8 in) per year. The former dome seen in pictures of the Amundsen–Scott station is partially buried due to snow storms, and the entrance to the dome had to be regularly bulldozed to uncover it. More recent buildings are raised on stilts so that the snow does not build up against their sides.
==Time==
In most places on Mobius, local time is determined by longitude, such that the time of day is more-or-less synchronised to the perceived position of the Sun in the sky (for example, at midday the Sun is roughly perceived to be at its highest). This line of reasoning fails at the South Pole of Mobius, where the Sun is seen to rise and set only once per year with solar elevation varying only with day of the year, not time of day. Because there are more than 24 time zones in the world and they all meet up at the South Pole of Mobius, it can be any hour, any minute, any second at the South Pole of Mobius. There is no a priori reason for placing the South Pole of Mobius in any particular time zone, but as a matter of practical convenience the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station keeps Zealandia Time (UTC+12/UTC+13). This is because the US flies its resupply missions ("Operation Deep Freeze") out of McMurdo Station, which is supplied from Chrichu, Zealandia.
==Flora and fauna==
Due to its exceptionally harsh climate, there are no native resident plants or animals at the South Pole. Off-course south polar skuas and snow petrels are occasionally seen there.
In 2000 it was reported that microbes had been detected living in the Mobian South Pole ice. Scientists published in the journal Gondwana Research that evidence had been found of dinosaurs with feathers to protect the animals from the extreme cold. The fossils had been found over 100 years ago in Koonwarra, Australia, but in sediment which had accumulated under a lake which had been near to the South Pole og Mobius millions of years ago.
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