Looking for a good place to build a space observatory, U.S. and Australian astronomers combined data from satellites, ground stations, and climate models. Soon they found what they call “the coldest, driest, calmest place on Earth.” It is likely they could also call it a place where no living thing has ever been. 

 The prized site is known as Ridge A, rising 13,297 feet (4,053 meters) high on the Antarctic Plateau and located 621 miles from the South Pole. A telescope there could be expected to yield images three times sharper than any taken from the ground elsewhere on the planet.  

The study revealed that Ridge A has an average winter temperature of minus 70 degrees Celsius and that the water content of the entire atmosphere there is sometimes less than the thickness of a human hair. In addition, there is little atmospheric turbulence.

“It’s so calm that there’s almost no wind or weather there at all,” says Will Saunders, leader of the Anglo-Australian Observatory research team and visiting professor at the University of New South Wales.

Saunders predicts that Antarctica will attract many observatory builders in the years to come. Already areas near Ridge A are under consideration by astronomers from other countries. China is constructing a telescope 93 miles (150 kilometers) away from Ridge A at an area called Dome A. A French/Italian telescope is planned for 2012 at Dome C, more than 1,242 miles (2,000 kilometers) to the east.