🌊❄️ Hey there, young explorers! Have you heard about the amazing journey of China’s icebreaker ship, the Xuelong-2 (that’s “Snow Dragon 2” in English)? This incredible ship has just returned from a record-breaking expedition to Antarctica, the icy continent at the bottom of our planet!
The Xuelong-2 set sail from Guangzhou, a city in south China’s Guangdong Province, on November 1, 2024. It spent 208 days at sea, traveling over 40,000 nautical miles! That’s like going around the Earth almost twice! 🌍
What makes this voyage so special? For the first time ever, China explored the Ross Sea during Antarctica’s autumn season. Usually, researchers go there in the summer when it’s a bit warmer (but still super cold)! 🥶 But the Xuelong-2 team braved the chillier autumn and winter conditions to discover new things about this frozen world.
Here are some cool things they did:
- They performed 24 big ocean studies across four different areas. 🌐
- They placed 34 special buoys in the ocean to collect data. 📡
- They collected over 5,000 samples, including water, mud from the sea floor, plants and animals, and even sea ice! 🐠🦠
This mission wasn’t just about China. Scientists from eight other countries joined the adventure! They came from the UK, the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Thailand, and Malaysia. Together, they worked to learn more about our planet’s polar regions and how to protect them. 🧑🔬🤝🌏
Guess what else happened? To celebrate 50 years of friendship between China and Thailand, the Xuelong-2 made its first visit to Thailand in May. They had a special marine cooperation event where scientists shared their discoveries and taught people about protecting the polar regions. 🇨🇳🇹🇭
The expedition showed how China is helping to explore and protect Antarctica. By studying this icy wilderness, scientists hope to understand more about Earth’s climate and how to take care of our environment. 🌎❤️
Isn’t it inspiring how countries can work together to explore the unknown? Who knows, maybe one day you’ll be part of an exciting adventure like this! 🚢✨
Reference(s):
China's icebreaker Xuelong-2 returns after record Antarctic expedition
cgtn.com
