Materials Chemistry in the Far South

RecommendationsO ne of my favorite parts of my job is having many opportunities to visit other countries and meet colleagues from around the world.The farthest city I have traveled to from my hometown was Saõ Josédos Campos in Brazil, located more than 18,000 km from Seoul, which requires at least 25 hours of flight time to reach.However, if I ask someone living in the Northern Hemisphere about the farthest place from their hometown, they may answer "Antarctica".Although the physical distance may not be the longest, Antarctica feels like a place we cannot easily visit because of its remoteness and isolated environment.Fortunately, I had the opportunity to visit Antarctica in October and November of 2024 as a scientist and gained unforgettable memories from what felt like the farthest place from home.In this editorial, I would like to share basic information about Antarctica�how to get there, how to stay, what we did�as well as my research experience as a materials scientist.Compared with my longest trip from Korea to Brazil, which involved two connecting flights, the journey from Seoul to Antarctica was even longer.I flew to Christchurch, New Zealand, via a layover at Sydney Airport in Australia, and waited for the final flight at Christchurch Airport.Geographically, the Antarctic continent is divided into two regions (see Figure 1a): East Antarctica and West Antarctica. 1 East Antarctica is closer to Australia and New Zealand, while West Antarctica is more easily accessible from the southern tip of South America, such as Chile and Argentina.Jang Bogo Station (JBS), Korea's second permanent research station in Antarctica and the site of my research, is located in East Antarctica, so I departed from Christchurch, New Zealand.Since many permanent research stations from different countries are also located in East Antarctica, various facilities for scientists traveling to and from their stations�such as the International Antarctic Centre (Figure 1b)�are concentrated around Christchurch Airport.Our team from the Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI) departed after a few days of standby, using a charter flight operated by the Italian program.Because the Italian Mario Zucchelli Station and the Korean JBS are all located around Terra Nova Bay, we shared a charter flight between Christchurch and the landing site on the sea ice of Terra Nova Bay.Sometimes the charter flight is a commercial airplane such as an Airbus, but more often it is a military transport aircraft operated by the Italian Air Force.We arrived at the end of October, which is the early summer season in East Antarctica, so the sea ice in Terra Nova Bay was still more than 2 meters thick�within the safe range for aircraft landings.After a 4-hour flight, the moment of landing on sea ice was much smoother and quieter than I expected, with no bumps or jolts.Colleagues from JBS picked us up in a snow groomer (a vehicle often seen