What do you think of this fact?
A cold winter day in many places might reach minus 10 degrees Celsius. With really bad luck, minus 20. But there’s a place that got much, much colder.
The Vostok record
On July 21, 1983, the thermometer at the Russian research station Vostok in Antarctica showed minus 89.2 degrees Celsius (minus 128.6 degrees Fahrenheit). According to Guinness World Records, it’s the lowest temperature ever measured directly with a thermometer on Earth.
July is winter in the Southern Hemisphere. In Antarctica, that means months of darkness, because in the depths of winter the sun doesn’t rise at all. Without its warmth, the ice keeps cooling down.
Why there?
According to the Farmers’ Almanac, Vostok station sits at an altitude of about 3,500 meters (11,500 feet), in the middle of the Antarctic ice sheet. The South Pole is about 1,300 kilometers away.
That combination makes the spot so extreme: it’s very high, far from any ocean that could bring warmth, and in the middle of a giant sheet of ice. The higher a place is, the thinner the air and usually the colder it gets.
Bonus fact: Satellites have even picked up readings around minus 98 degrees in some parts of Antarctica. According to Guinness, those don’t count as the official record, because they weren’t taken directly with a thermometer on the ground.
At minus 89.2 degrees, everything changes. Your breath freezes almost instantly, and exposed skin would be in danger very quickly. That’s why people at the station work in special clothing and spend most of their time indoors.
For comparison: a regular freezer runs at about minus 18 degrees. On record day, Vostok was about five times as far below zero.
The record hasn’t been broken since 1983. And honestly, nobody needs to try.