AntarcticaAntarctica (ænˈtɑːrktᵻkə) is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent, being about 40% larger than Europe, and has an area of . Most of Antarctica is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet, with an average thickness of . Antarctica is, on average, the coldest, driest, and windiest of the continents, and it has the highest average elevation.
Lake VostokLake Vostok (озеро Восток, ozero Vostok) is the largest of Antarctica's almost 400 known subglacial lakes. Lake Vostok is located at the southern Pole of Cold, beneath Russia's Vostok Station under the surface of the central East Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is at above mean sea level. The surface of this fresh water lake is approximately under the surface of the ice, which places it at approximately below sea level. Measuring long by wide at its widest point, it covers an area of making it the 16th largest lake by surface area.
Vostok StationVostok Station (ста́нция Восто́к, ˈstant͡sɨjə vɐˈstok, meaning "Station East") is a Russian research station in inland Princess Elizabeth Land, Antarctica. Founded by the Soviet Union in 1957, the station lies at the southern Pole of Cold, with the lowest reliably measured natural temperature on Earth of . Research includes ice core drilling and magnetometry. Vostok (Russian for "east") was named after Vostok, the lead ship of the First Russian Antarctic Expedition captained by Fabian von Bellingshausen.
LakeA lake is a naturally occurring, relatively large body of water localized in a basin surrounded by dry land. A lake generally has a slower-moving flow than the inflow or outflow stream(s) that serve to feed or drain it. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from the ocean, although, like the much larger oceans, they form part of the Earth's water cycle by serving as large standing pools of storage water. Most lakes are freshwater and account for almost all the world's surface freshwater, but some are salt lakes with salinities even higher than that of seawater.
Water on MarsAlmost all water on Mars today exists as ice, though it also exists in small quantities as vapor in the atmosphere. What was thought to be low-volume liquid brines in shallow Martian soil, also called recurrent slope lineae, may be grains of flowing sand and dust slipping downhill to make dark streaks. While most water ice is buried, it is exposed at the surface across several locations on Mars. In the mid-latitudes, it is exposed by impact craters, steep scarps and gullies.
Ice streamAn ice stream is a region of fast-moving ice within an ice sheet. It is a type of glacier, a body of ice that moves under its own weight. They can move upwards of a year, and can be up to in width, and hundreds of kilometers in length. They tend to be about deep at the thickest, and constitute the majority of the ice that leaves the sheet. In Antarctica, the ice streams account for approximately 90% of the sheet's mass loss per year, and approximately 50% of the mass loss in Greenland.
