Chinese icebreaker Xuelong completes latest Antarctic expedition

China's 33rd Antarctic expedition team has successfully completed a 161-day trip covering 31,000 nautical miles. 

Jiang Hua (1st R), a member of the Chinese scientific expedition team, poses for photo with his wife Zhu Lihua and daughters after returning to Shanghai, east China, April 11, 2017. Chinese scientists concluded a 161-day expedition, the 33rd of its kind, to Antarctica on the Xuelong icebreaker and returned to Shanghai on Tuesday. [Photo: Xinhua]

The research vessel and icebreaker, Xuelong (Snow Dragon) returned to its Shanghai base on Tuesday, carrying the 256-member expedition team.

The team made stops at the Chinese Antarctic stations Changcheng, Zhongshan, Taishan and Kunlun, conducting various research tasks and experiments. 

The researchers have also completed the site selection for the country's 5th research station.

"Xueying 601" reaches record-setting landing point

China's first fixed-wing aircraft in the Antarctic "Xue Ying 601", or "Snow Eagle", successfully clears the sky above the country's Kunlun research station located in the South Pole at an altitude of over 4000 meters on January 9, 2016. [Photo: Xinhua]

In January, Chinese aircraft "Xue Ying 601", or snow hawk, successfully made its maiden landing at the 4,000-meter-high Kunlun Station, which is located in an area considered as the coldest naturally occurring place on Earth.

The aircraft accomplished a 115-day mission, including performing airborne remote sensing and telemetry operations, such as collecting ice-penetrating radar data, gravity-measuring, and aerial photography.

It also finished geophysical explorations covering 300,000 square kilometres in the east Antarctic, making China one of the few countries that are able to conduct aerial surveys in Antarctica. 

Xue Ying 601 is a Chinese-produced fixed-wing aircraft specifically for Antarctic research. 

800-meter-long ice cores extracted

A researcher on China's icebreaker Xuelong drills on Antarctic ice zone, Nov 29, 2016. [Photo: Xinhua]

The team broke its own record by 146 meters, extracting an 800 meter-long ice core.

This has helped researchers obtain data about climate change dating back 120,000 years.

Starting in 2009, Chinese researchers have been working on drilling ice cores in the Antarctic in the hope of examining changes in the world's environment over the past 50,000 years.

Site selection for new station completed 

China's icebreaker Xuelong in the Antarctic ice zone, Nov 29, 2016 [Photo: Xinhua]

The researchers have finished a new survey of possible sites and also finished the site selection for the country's fifth base on the Ross Sea, a bay in Antarctica.

Lin Shanqing, deputy head of State Oceanic Administration, said China has finished prep works for the new station and will start the construction in 2018, China Daily reports. 

The researchers inspected and examined five locations before making the final decision. 

Antarctica's Ross Sea is considered "the least altered marine ecosystem on Earth," which makes it a living laboratory that might help give the scientists insights into the history of Antarctica. 

China set sail for its first journey to the Antarctic in 1984 and set up its first research station –the Great Wall, or Changcheng on King George Island in February 1985.