Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Calmest place on the planet, needs a Starbucks


You thought it was any room where that your mother-in-law wasn't in.
Sciences begs to disagree.
Turns out the calmest place on earth is a few hundred miles from the South Pole, so-called Ridge A. Things are so calm there, even the stars don't dare twinkle.
Based on studies of weather patterns, satellite data viewed from an astronomers point of view, a team of U.S. and Australian scientists have settled on the spot as the most mellow spot on Earth.
It's 13,300 feet above sea level and sits at the head of three humongous glaciers -- each muscling out over land the size of western Europe.
Calm is not paradise. At 100 times drier than the Sahara and with an average winter temperature of -94 degrees farenheit, it's the coldest and driest place on the planet.
Because the calm extends into space, scientists are noodling out the best way to plant a telescope there. If they succeed, the images could rival those of the Hubble space telescope.