The Coldest Temperature Ever Was in Antarctica

The record for Earth's coldest day was set at a place uniquely designed for it: Russia's Vostok Station in Antarctica. Located high on the desolate East Antarctic Plateau, over 11,000 feet above sea level and hundreds of miles from the moderating influence of any ocean, the station endures some of the planet's most extreme conditions. It was here, during the relentless darkness of the 1983 polar winter, that thermometers plunged to the astonishing low of minus 128.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

This record-setting temperature required a perfect combination of factors. The event occurred under exceptionally clear skies and with very little wind. Without a blanket of clouds to trap warmth, any residual heat from the ice sheet radiated directly out into space, allowing the thin, dry air at the surface to cool rapidly and continuously. The cold was so profound—colder than the surface of Mars on an average day—that it posed an immediate threat to life and machinery. At this temperature, steel can become brittle and fracture, and breathing the air without a mask would cause fatal hemorrhaging in the lungs.