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LiveScience
LiveScience
Nola Taylor Redd

Antarctica: Facts about the southernmost continent

Antarctica Antarctic Robert Scott Ernest Shackleton Roald Amundsen Earth
Four penguins waddle along the ice.
Quick facts about Antarctica

How big it is: 5.5 million square miles (14 million square kilometers)

How cold it can get: minus 144 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 98 degrees Celsius)

How thick its ice is: Up to 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) thick

Antarctica is the coldest, windiest and driest continent on Earth. The Antarctic ice sheet contains about 7.2 million cubic miles (30 million cubic kilometers) in an area just under 1.5 times the size of the United States. But the southernmost continent is much more than a big block of ice.

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