The interior of explorer Ernest Shackleton's hut in Antarctica
Google has added new panoramic imagery features to its Street View portrayal of the Antarctic. The latest features include the inside of well-preserved man-made structures, including explorer Ernest Shackleton’s hut, which includes examples of the food, medicine, survival gear and equipment used during Antarctic expeditions.
The internet giant will be posting this special collection to its World Wonders site.
With the help of the Polar Geospatial Center at the University of Minnesota and the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust, Google has added 360°-imagery of many notable spots, inside and out, such as the South Pole Telescope, Shackleton’s Hut, Scott’s Hut, Cape Royds Adélie Penguin Rookery and the Ceremonial South Pole.
“With this technology, you can go inside places like Shackleton’s Hut and the other small wooden buildings that served as bases from which the explorers launched their expeditions,” Google Street View technical program manager Alex Starns said in the official Google blog.
“They were built to withstand the drastic weather conditions only for the few short years that the explorers inhabited them, but remarkably, after more than a century, the structures are still intact, along with well-preserved examples of the food, medicine, survival gear and equipment used during the expeditions.
“Now anyone can explore these huts and get insight into how these men lived for months at a time,” Starns said.
