It’s cold, dry and really windy. It has no time zone, no permanent residents and no government. Welcome to Antarctica. 

Summer is pretty much the only time for visits to this part of the world (unless you're setting off with the Coldest Journey team later this month). During the polar winter, the sea surrounding the continent freezes over, permanent darkness sets in and temperatures drop to extreme lows (the lowest reliably measured temperature was −89.2 °C in July 1983 at Vostok Station).

More than 90% of our planet's ice can be found here, and in winter, ice cover increases dramatically when the sea surrounding Antarctica freezes over (at a pace of almost 40,000 square miles per day), effectively doubling the size of the continent. 

Antarctica's life forms endure some of the harshest conditions on the planet. Aside from the extreme cold, there are strong winds of up to 200mph, fierce snowstorms and very little precipitation (the interior receives less rain than the Sahara Desert). Most of the larger animals are summer visitors only. Permanent residents are much more primitive and mostly microscopic.

The only one of its kind commonly found in this part of the world, the kelp gull hunts by swooping down from the air and plucking prey from the water's surface. Antarctic limpets are a favourite, but these gulls are seriously opportunistic feeders. In fact, not too far off, near Peninsula Valdes in Argentina, kelp gulls have developed a taste for whale. 

The mysteries of "penguin huddles" (which the birds form to help them endure Antarctica's freezing temperatures) have attracted the interest of mathematicians, who've used mathematical models to shed some light on huddle dynamics.

They're two of the world's largest penguin species ... but how do you tell them apart? Aside from its less regal size, the king has slightly different colouring, "closed" ear patches (versus its cousins' "open" ones) and a different distribution (emperors are the only penguins that breed on the open ice during the harsh Antarctic winter). 

They might not look particularly agile on land, but seals recently helped scientists uncover some of the secrets hiding deep beneath the Antarctic ice. The 'cyber seals' were fitted with special head sensors and swam deep beneath the ice, transmitting information about how the ocean's coldest, deepest waters are formed.

The secret to the seals' success in this extreme part of the world? One word: blubber. Composed of fat-filled cells, this layer is several inches thick and helps both to insulate and store food reserves.

Named after the black strip of feathers that runs across their chins, Antarctica's chinstrap penguins are actually in decline. Scientists think rising temperatures are depleting krill numbers, the birds’ main food supply.

Gentoo penguins can make as many as 450 dives during a single day's foraging  ... so it's probably a good thing that they're the world's fastest avian swimmers, reaching speeds up to 35km/h.