What’s the coldest spot on Earth? NASA has pinpointed it — and the nights are deadly

Mark Price
·1 min read
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If you think a little cold air and snow might bolster your holiday spirits, NASA says it knows the perfect destination for frigid Christmas and New Year’s celebrations.

“Looking for the coldest place to spend the holiday season?” the space agency asked in a Facebook post.

“You won’t find anyone else there, but the coldest place we’ve found on Earth (with the help of NASA Earth satellites) is a high ridge on the East Antarctic Plateau.”

Just be sure to bundle up. Temperatures on the ridge “can drop to 135 degrees (Fahrenheit) below zero” on winter nights, NASA says.

At that point, even gasoline freezes

NASA first reported finding the planet’s coldest spot in 2013, and the plateau has continued to hold the dubious honor every year since.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center concluded the East Antarctic Plateau was the coldest place in the world after analyzing 32 years of data from several satellites, NASA says. The hollows on the plateau are considered the coldest spots.

“Near a high ridge that runs from Dome Arugs to Dome Fuji, the scientists found clusters of pockets that have plummeted to record low temperatures dozens of times,” officials reported. “The lowest temperature the satellites detected - minus 136° F (minus 93.2° C), on Aug. 10, 2010.”

Scientists attribute the plateau’s dangerous temperatures to a combination of air that is “stationary for extended periods, while continuing to radiate more heat away into space.”

However, the plateau is not “the coldest permanently inhabited place on Earth,” experts say. That’s located in northeast Siberia, “where temperatures dropped to a bone-chilling 90 degrees below zero F (minus 67.8° C) in the towns of Verkhoyansk (in 1892) and Oimekon (in 1933).”

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