ANTARCTICA
THE TIMELESS CONTINENT
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Of the unusual phenomena that occur at the polar extremes of the Earth, time is a particularly peculiar one.
By :Luna Shyr
Yes, the sky at the South Pole splits the year between whole days of light and dark. But how do humans who venture there_to a place where the world’s 24 time zones converge – and to the rest of Antarctica set their clocks?
It all depends. While scientific observations follow coordinated universal time (UTC), each Antarctic research station (above) adopts one of three practices for coordinating logistics on the ice.
The majority keep the time of their home country.
Others stay on the clock of the city from which their ships or aircraft departed. Fewer still use the standard time at their geographic location.
All of which means a smattering of times on a continent the size of the United States and Mexico combined. So who plays Father Time at the Pole itself? New Zealand, last port of
call for Americans headed to their station at the bottom of the world.
