What is the North Pole?
A: The North Pole is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's
axis of rotation meets its surface.
It is called the True North Pole to distinguish it from
what?
A: The Magnetic North Pole.
What is the North Pole by definition?
A: The northernmost point on the Earth, lying antipodally to the
South Pole.
It defines geodetic latitude 90° North, as well as
what?
A: The direction of true north.
At the North Pole all directions point where?
A: South.
No time zone has been what?
A: Assigned to the North Pole, so any time can be used as the local time.
Along tight latitude circles, counterclockwise is what
direction?
A: East and clockwise is west.
The North Pole is at the center of what?
A: The Northern Hemisphere.
The nearest land is usually said to be what?
A: Kaffeklubben Island, off the northern coast of Greenland about 700 km
(430 mi) away.
What is the nearest permanently inhabited place?
A: Alert in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut,
Canada, which is located 817 km
(508 mi) from the Pole.
While the South Pole lies on a continental land mass,
the North Pole is located where?
A: In the middle of the Arctic Ocean amid waters that are almost permanently
covered with constantly shifting sea ice.
The sea depth at the North Pole has been measured at
what?
A: 4,261 m (13,980 ft) by the Russian Mir submersible in 2007 and at 4,087 m
(13,409 ft) by USS Nautilus in 1958.
This makes it impractical to construct what?
A: A permanent station at the North Pole.
Studies in the 2000s predicted that the North Pole may
become seasonally ice-free because of Arctic ice shrinkage, with what time
scale?
A: Varying from 2016 to the late 21st century or later.
Attempts to reach the North Pole began when?
A: In the late 19th century, with the record for "Farthest North" being
surpassed on numerous occasions.
What was the first undisputed expedition to reach the
North Pole?
A: It was that of the airship Norge, which overflew the area in 1926 with 16
men on board, including expedition leader Roald Amundsen.
The Earth's axis of rotation – and hence the position
of the North Pole – was commonly believed to be fixed (relative to the
surface of the Earth) until what?
A: In the 18th century, the mathematician Leonhard Euler predicted that the
axis might "wobble" slightly.
Around the beginning of the 20th century astronomers
noticed a small apparent "variation of latitude", as determined for a fixed
point on Earth from the observation of what?
A: Stars.
As early as the 16th century, many prominent people
correctly believed that the North Pole was in a sea, which in the 19th
century was called what?
A: The Polynya or Open Polar Sea.
One of the earliest expeditions to set out with the
explicit intention of reaching the North Pole was that of whom?
A: British naval officer William Edward Parry, who in 1827 reached latitude
82°45′ North.
In 1871, the Polaris expedition, a US attempt on the
Pole led by Charles Francis Hall, ended in what?
A: Disaster.
An 1879–1881 expedition commanded by US naval officer
George W. De Long ended how?
A: Tragically when their ship, the USS Jeannette, was crushed by ice.
Over half the crew, including De Long, were what?
A: Lost.
