But the most difficult task was to refill the vehicles with gas. "One tank of gas can only run for 100 km. When we had to get out of the vehicles to put more in, we could only rely on sheer willpower since it was so cold outside," said Chen Hongji, a teammate from the People's Liberation Army University of Science and Technology. After 53 hours, the Australians were safely brought back to their station.

As a member of such a scientific expedition, a person must not only face the physical challenges, such as the extreme coldness, snowstorms, oxygen deficiency, but also must deal with nervousness, anxiety and loneliness caused by the long distance from the rest of the world.

"You even need to sacrifice your teeth," said Qin Dahe, a 1989 international scientific expedition team member and also the first Chinese to cross Antarctica on foot. Energy demands at such environmental extremes mean that not eating can quickly become a life-threatening prospect. If a person's teeth have problems, the risks of losing life increase. "My teeth are not strong enough, so the doctor pulled 10 out just in case."

Going deep in the mountains

"The scientific expedition is very hard and dangerous, but for a scientist, the goal is to find the answers to the unknown. I went there curious," said Liu Xiaohan, who has been involved in seven Antarctic expeditions over the past 25 years.

.In January 1984, when Liu returned to China after receiving his doctoral degree in France, he was recommended to participate in China's first competition to be an Antarctic scientific expedition member and was finally selected. From 1984 to January 2009, he went to Antarctica seven times. The 25-year experience made him understand more and more that a scientific expedition is the reflection of a country's strength, economic power and research ability.

In 1958, Royal Australian Air Force squadron leader I.L.Grove made the first landing in the area and the nearby mountains were named after him. The word "Grove" also means "woods," and viewed from the sky, the 3,200-square-km area looks like a forest with 64 ice-covered mountains. Looks here can be deceiving, though. All the mountains are very steep and dangerous for expeditions. Before 1998, no scientists had stepped into the area.

In 1998, the 50-year-old Liu led three teammates to this inhospitable area guided by only an unclear satellite map. They became the first expedition to enter the area.

In 1999, Liu went back to the mountains to retrieve samples from the ice seams. With a 2,000-meter-thick ice sheet, cracks that can be as wide as valleys and crust as thin as just several centimeters, the research members had to be extremely careful with every step.

Apart from getting the samples, their goal was also to retrieve samples of meteorites that can be found dotting the mountains. After completing some geological research, Liu and another researcher went back to where they earlier found a meteorite sample. In the following days, they found about 10,000 of them. Among the ones whose origins have been determined and in one of the biggest discoveries of China's Antarctic expeditions, scientists later found that the team had brought back samples from Mars.

Friends of human

Penguins, the curious butlers of the frozen southern lands, gave a great deal of enjoyment to the scientists. "The adult penguins all live with the partner and children. They play together happily and don't care about anything else, including human beings," said Liu. "They are very friendly and can even give a pose when you take pictures of them." When the team played football, the penguins all stood by, watching.

Chinese scientists, looking into the area's geology and ecology, studied the changing patterns of penguin species with the effects of climate change. They extended that study to look at other polar animals and climate change.

In January 2009, during the Antarctic summer and the penguins' breeding season, Liu again paid a visit to an island inhabited by the swimming birds. He was surprised to find that the penguin population on the island was just one third that of 20 years ago. He said that the Antarctic biological chain is relatively simple. It is still unclear whether the decreasing penguin number is because of the climate or the activities of human beings. "This requires a project of detailed study," said Liu.