100-Year-Old Photo Negatives Discovered In Antarctica

An anonymous reader writes "A box of 22 photographic negatives from Robert Falcon Scott has been discovered after lying nearly a century in the famous explorer's hut. From the article: 'The photos were taken during Ernest Shackleton's 1914-1917 Ross Sea Party, another failed exploration whose members were forced to live in Scott's hut after their ship blew out to sea. The cellulose nitrate negatives were found clumped together in a small box in the darkroom of Herbert Ponting, Scott's expedition photographer, the trust said. The trust took the negatives to New Zealand, where they were separated to reveal 22 images.'"

Comments

Re:so

[game kid]

Well it is an Antarctic "fucking hut", so I imagine they'd prioritized that just a bit under "maintain climate observation equipment", "take new pictures", "inquire about those sparse supply shipments", and "avoid freezing ass off".

They've improved at all of 'em, but bad things still happen, so forgive them for not heading over to fetch some (historically important) photos hastily enough. There are reasons Scott ended up in that hut. :)

Awesome

[future assassin]

they must have felt like kids finding it.

Space suits?

[Boawk]

A couple of the photos show the explorers. My immediate thought was how ill equipped for the cold they look by today's standards. Then I started wondering about space suits. They obviously can withstand the cold and also have some durability for the elements given that on earth astronauts train wearing them under water. What are some practical limitations of space suits (perhaps modified to, e.g., not have to carry oxygen) that make them impracticable for working near the poles?

Re:Space suits?

[Brainguy]

I think the biggest problem would be that those suits weigh something like 200-300 pounds.

Re:Space suits?

[Anonymous Coward]

The antarctic is alot colder than space... Not in absolute terms. But in real world terms as it applys to humans and their stuff.

In space you have very little heat loss because it doesn't transfer very well to a vacuum. Why spacesuits do double duty as cooling units to keep you from overheating. The whole no air thing is a great insulator and your only losses are radiation.

On the pole however. It's cold. AND filled with air... Cold air. Moving cold air. Lots of it. You have much greater heat loss than just radiation.

You'd freeze in a space suit on the pole. Likely pretty quick too.

Re:Space suits?

[EligibleToModerate]

I'm not sure if you're referring to the Antarctic or space.. but let's try both. Antarctic? Last frontier? Not unless we go extinct. We know squat about the deep ocean. Space? Nah, we've barely begun to poke our heads out from under our rock.

Re:Space suits?

[Paradise Pete]

In space there is one thing that makes space suits usable at all. That thing is lack of gravity.

Oh man you'e just asking for a flock of pedants to jump on you about a "lack of gravity." Right after they explain to me that pedants do not come in flocks. (I believe the proper group name is an Annoyance.)

Digital camera

[renzhi]

The first thing that came to my mind when I saw the title is, hmm, let's put a digital camera or an SD card full of digital pictures in Antartica for 100 years, and see if we can recover it :)

Re:Digital camera

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would they have to be shot?

Re:Digital camera

[Paradise Pete]

Why would they have to be shot?

You can't trust those remote servers. It's better to shoot them first and ask questions later.

Re:so

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it is an Antarctic "fucking hut"

So they found porn?

Robert Falcon Scott, time traveller

[DrXym]

Scott (of the Antartic) died in 1912 and had nothing to do with the pictures. Shackleton's later expedition was using his hut and left the pictures there.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's an even better 360 view of the inside of the hut , which is a protected historic site - which might explain why no one has pried open every box inside looking for treasure.
(stupid broken link...)

This won't happen in the future.

[thegarbz]

This is amazing every time we see it. But alas I can see a different summary in the future:

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday January 02, 2114 @05:06PM

An anonymous reader writes

"A microSD card has been discovered after lying nearly a century on the moon in an ancient Chinese rover. From the article: 'It is presumed to contain photos which were taken during the PRC's 2013-2014 Moon mission. The microSD card was found in a rusted pile of what appeared to be the remains of the small rover. The card was taken to New Zealand, where even their ancient technology was unable to read it due to historic use of patent encumbered file systems and file formats where all documentation has been lost.'"

This is the future of discovering man kind's left overs. A piece of plastic with a small microchip containing unreadable gibberish.

Re:This won't happen in the future.

[EligibleToModerate]

Who cares about a little piece of plastic gimmickery when the future is apparently that samzenpus outlives us all?

Re:This won't happen in the future.

[Lumpy]

Until they find an old interface to read it, and discover it has only a single copy of "Never gonna give you up" on it.

Re:CNN link warning!!!

[someone1234]

Does your status bar prints: "Warning, In light of a certain Der Spiegel revelation in the last few days, consider following this link." ?

I, for one, didn't know anything about any problems in following a CNN link.

Filter

[sprins]

That's a cool Instagram filter they used. Anyone know which it is?

Epic expedition stories!

[Archimonde]

For anyone not knowing the expedition stories, even just by reading Wikipedia you can get the sense of how much those people went through. It is well worth your time: (warning: it is worse than tvtropes;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_Age_of_Antarctic_Exploration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimrod_Expedition/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amundsen's_South_Pole_expedition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Trans-Antarctic_Expedition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Sea_party

Atlantic Heritage Trust Image Collection

[fred911]

http://www.nzaht.org/AHT/antarctic-photos/
for a complete collection of the images.

PDX

[DarthVain]

That's nothing. Going through my Dad's thumb drives over Christmas I found one that contains all his digital photos. Fully about half of them are in an unreadable PDX (Photoshop Deluxe Express) format. So they are already unreadable gibberish, and that is only a handful of years in the past. No amount of software would convert them to something useful. Just image what someone would find in 100 years.

Interior design for cold weather..

[Anonymous Coward]

I LOVE the way they have the stove at one end, the chimney at the other, and run the flue diagonally across the hut to act as a radiator...

Re:so

[JamieIanMacgregor]

It is a 'dark room' after all, it's not easy to find stuff in the dark.