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The hunt for the best lookout station situation in the cosmos has lead to the discovery of what is think to be the coldest , driest , calmest place on Earth — a spot where no man is think to have ever set fundament .
To search for the perfect web site to take characterisation of the vault of heaven , a U.S.-Australian research team coalesce datum from satellite , earth station and climate example in a study to assess the many factors that affect uranology — cloud cover , temperature , sky - light , water vapor , nothingness speed and atmospherical turbulency .
The researchers pinpoint a site , have it away simply as Ridge A , that is 13,297 feet ( 4,053 meters ) high up on the Antarctic Plateau on the continent at the bottom of the world .
The study give away that Ridge A has an average winter temperature of minus 94 level Fahrenheit ( minus 70 degrees Celsius ) and an extremely modest amount of water in the strain .
The site is also extremely calm , which mean that there is very piffling of the atmospheric turbulence that elsewhere makes stars appear to twinkle .
" It ’s so calm that there ’s almost no wind or weather there at all , " said study loss leader Will Saunders , of the Anglo - Australian lookout station in Australia .
All these elements combine to make the gross recipe for an astronomical observation post : " The astronomic image taken at Ridge A should be at least three prison term sharper than at the best sites presently used by astronomers , " Saunders said . " Because the sky there is so much darker and siccative , it mean that a modestly - sized scope there would be as powerful as the largest telescopes anywhere else on earth . "
The site would even be superior to the good existing observatories on gamey mountain tops in Hawaii and Chile , Saunders said . Researchers affirm that a telescope at the site could take images nearly as good as those from the space - basedHubble telescope .
situate within the Australian Antarctic Territory , the website is 89 nautical mile ( 144 km ) from an internationalrobotic observatoryand the proposed Modern Chinese ' Kunlun ' base at Dome A , a higher point on the Antarctic Plateau .
The determination was detailed on Aug. 31 in the Publications of the Astronomical Society .
