Famed Antarctic Explorer's Ship Found ... Near the Arctic

The wreck of the SS Terra Nova, a ship most famous for taking Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his doomed party of explorers to the Antarctic in 1911, has been discovered—on the other side of the world, reports the Telegraph. The 187-foot-long vessel was discovered by accident off the coast of Greenland during a test of echo sounders by the Schmidt Ocean Institute. A camera was then sent down to confirm the ship's identity.

The Terra Nova was built in 1884, sailed by Scott to the Antarctic in 1911, and later was used by a Newfoundland seal fishery. In 1942 it was chartered to sail supplies to Greenland, but was damaged by ice the next year; the US Coast Guard saved the crew but sunk the ship. "It is remarkable that the Terra Nova has been found now, 100 years on from the race to the pole, the death of Scott and four of his crew, and in the year of various events to commemorate that occasion,” said one historian. Due to the damage it suffered and the cost of recovery, the wreckage will likely continue to slumber at depths of 1,000 feet. (More Robert Falcon Scott stories.)