A Voyage to Antarctica

Alok Jha talks to meteorite-hunter Katherine Joy to discover why the icy continent is one of the best places on Earth to find them. Professor Katherine Joy is a Professor of Lunar and Planetary Sciences at the University of Manchester. She received her PhD in 2007 at UCL, before taking up post-doc positions at Birkbeck College and the Lunar and Planetary Institute/NASA Johnson Space Center, and then a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship and a Royal Society University Fellowship at The University of Manchester. Katherine studies different types of lunar samples to understand how the Moon has geologically evolved through time and how it is a recorder of Solar System processes. She is a member of the Artemis III Geology Team, and is involved in science teams for the ESA PROSPECT and DIMPLE lunar experiments. She also co-led the first UK team working with the British Antarctic Survey to recover meteorite samples from Antarctica. 🇦🇶 SUPPORT US 🇦🇶https://shop.ukaht.org/products/donation 🎯 FOLLOW US 🎯✩ YouTube: / ukantarcticheritagetrust✩ Instagram: / ukantarcticheritagetrust  ✩ Facebook:/ ukantarcticheritagetrust  ✩ TikTok: / ukantarcticheritagetrust  Season 6 of A Voyage To Antarctica is made possible by support from HX Expeditions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if Antarctica had rights and its own voice at the international table? Alok Jha explores that question with Cormac Cullinan, environmental lawyer, author, and advocate for the rights of nature.Cormac is a director of the Wild Law Institute and the specialist environmental law firm Cullinan & Associates. His groundbreaking book Wild Law A Manifesto for Earth Justice (2002) pioneered Earth Jurisprudence and has played a significant role in informing and inspiring the growing Rights of Nature movement.Cormac led the drafting of the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth (proclaimed on 22 April 2010 in Bolivia) and is a founder and Executive Committee member of the Global Alliance for Rights of Nature. He was awarded the 2025 Shackleton Medal for the Protection of the Polar Regions and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Antarctic Alliance, launched on 1 December 2025.🇦🇶 SUPPORT US 🇦🇶https://shop.ukaht.org/products/donation 🐧 ADOPT A PENGUIN 🐧 https://www.ukaht.org/shop/adopt-a-pe...🎯 FOLLOW US 🎯✩ YouTube: / ukantarcticheritagetrust✩ Instagram: / ukantarcticheritagetrust  ✩ Facebook:/ ukantarcticheritagetrust  ✩ TikTok: / ukantarcticheritagetrust  🇦🇶 Add your voice to the Antarctic Rights Campaign! 🇦🇶antarcticrights.org/a-voice-for-antarctica/ Season 6 of A Voyage To Antarctica is made possible by support from HX Expeditions.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alok Jha talks to Lorraine Kelly about her lifelong passion for Antarctica, inspired by her hero Ernest Shackleton AKA ‘The Boss’. Lorraine Kelly is a Scottish television presenter, journalist and Sunday Times bestselling author, best known for her ITV show, Lorraine. In 2024, she was awarded a BAFTA for her outstanding contribution to the television industry, marking four-decades of her unstoppable and impressive broadcasting career, as a hugely significant presence on British television.She has presented many other TV programmes including The Last Leg, Queens for the Night and Have I Got News For You?. She has made guest appearances on The Masked Singer, The Graham Norton Show, Ant & Dec Saturday Night Takeaway, RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, Late Night Lycett and Portrait Artist of the Year. Lorraine is also a best selling author, most recently with her debut fiction novel, The Island Swimmer. In 2012, Lorraine was awarded the OBE, for services to charity and the armed forces, by HM The Queen at Holyrood palace in Edinburgh. In 2020, Lorraine also received a CBE for services to broadcasting, journalism and charity. She is a keen charity supporter and is a patron of Help for Heroes and the STV Children’s Appeal.🇦🇶 SUPPORT US 🇦🇶https://shop.ukaht.org/products/donation🐧 ADOPT A PENGUIN 🐧 https://www.ukaht.org/shop/adopt-a-pe...🎯 FOLLOW US 🎯✩ YouTube: / ukantarcticheritagetrust ✩ Instagram: / ukantarcticheritagetrust  ✩ Facebook: / ukantarcticheritagetrust  ✩ TikTok: / ukantarcticheritagetrust  Season 6 of A Voyage To Antarctica is made possible by support from HX Expeditions.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The winter before Captain Scott’s ill-fated attempt on the South Pole, his youngest team member Apsley Cherry-Garrard (known as “Cherry”) set off across the ice in the middle of the polar night. Henrietta Hammant talks to Alok Jha about this astonishing journey and Cherry’s subsequent memoir, which remains one of the most gripping works of travel and adventure writing to this day. Henrietta is an anthropologist specialising in the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration. Her research considers how this era of Antarctic history is displayed in museums. She has worked across the UK and Canada, most notably at the Polar Museum in Cambridge, and has recently submitted her PhD thesis at the University of Reading.To support this podcast and the work of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust click here To buy a copy of Cherry: A Life of Apsley Cherry-Garrard click here Season 5 of A Voyage to Antarctica is made possible by support from HX Hurtigruten Expeditions.Sound Credits: Footsteps in Snow by SoundBiterSFX - https://freesound.org/s/730914/ - License: Creative Commons 0Walking in Soft Snow.wav by Percy Duke - https://freesound.org/s/420633/ - License: Attribution 3.0Silencyo_CC_Wind Mistral_Strong_pine trees.aif by silencyo - https://freesound.org/s/81797/ - License: Creative Commons 0Heavy hailstorm with thunder by Cinetony - https://freesound.org/s/620489/ - License: Creative Commons 0Short Hailstorm.wav by Benboncan - https://freesound.org/s/63802/ - License: Attribution 4.0  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Leigh Hickmott takes Alok Jha up close and personal with Antarctica’s most fearsome resident: the killer whale, which Leigh calls ‘the apex and most adept predator on the planet’. Leigh is a research scientist, zoologist and wildlife presenter, who has co-authored and contributed to numerous scientific research papers. His killer whale research is featured in BBC documentaries ‘Expedition Killer Whale’ and ‘Frozen Planet II’ and he has acted as an ‘on location’ scientific adviser during the filming of natural history series including: NatGeo/Disney+’s Emmy award winning ‘Animals Up Close – Killer Waves’, ‘Our Oceans’ on Netflix, ‘Sentient’ on Disney+ and ‘Blue Planet III’ on the BBC.Leigh’s Antarctic research journey began in 2017, and he has returned each austral summer season since. His research includes studies of three ‘ecotypes’ of killer whale found along the Peninsula’s coast, with his core focus on ‘pack ice’ killer whales.Special thanks to Leigh for providing images and recordings of killer whales for this episode. To support this podcast and the work of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, click here For more information about our guests, click hereSeason 5 of A Voyage to Antarctica is made possible by support from HX Hurtigruten Expeditions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alok Jha talks to world-renowned volcanologist and filmmaker Clive Oppenheimer. More people have been to space than have set eyes on the depths of Mount Erebus in Antarctica – the continent’s highest active volcano. But Clive has been back to Erebus 13 times: to better understand what is happening in the fiery depths below the ice and answer big questions about life on our planet and beyond. For 30 years Clive has been based at the University of Cambridge, where he is Professor of Volcanology. His research seeks to understand how volcanoes work and to probe the connections between eruptions, climate and society. He has conducted fieldwork around the world, either at the crater's edge peering in with assorted monitoring devices or hunting for the far-flung deposits of Earth's greatest eruptions.His books include: 'Mountains of Fire' and 'Eruptions that Shook the World' and he has also made two documentary features with legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog: 'Into the Inferno' for Netflix and 'Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds' for AppleTV+.To support the work of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, click here For more information about our guests, click hereSeason 5 of A Voyage to Antarctica is made possible by support from HX Hurtigruten Expeditions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alok Jha talks to NASA astro-botanist Jess Bunchek about growing vegetables in Antarctica – and outer space. Jess started as a botanist and agronomist and, after completing her masters, worked as an astro-botanist at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where she researched space crop production and supported “Veggie” – a vegetable production chamber on the International Space Station. While at NASA, she proposed a new collaboration with Germany's space agency, DLR, on the EDEN ISS greenhouse project in Antarctica. For this, Jess overwintered for 14 months at Germany's Neumayer Station III in Antarctica from late 2020 to early 2022, where she operated EDEN ISS and contributed to multiple areas of Antarctic research. For more information about our guests and episode transcripts, click hereTo support the work of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, click here Season 4 of A Voyage to Antarctica is made possible with support from Hurtigruten Expeditions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alok Jha talks to journalist and author Julian Sancton about the harrowing and epic survival story of The Belgica: an early polar expedition gone terribly wrong – with a ship frozen in ice and its crew trapped inside for months of endless polar night. Julian is an editor at The Hollywood Reporter. His writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, Esquire, GQ, The New Yorker, Wired, and Playboy, among others. He has reported from every continent, including Antarctica, which he visited while researching his New York Times bestseller Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica’s Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night. A graduate of Harvard College, where he majored in History, Julian lives in Larchmont, New York, with his partner, Jessica, and their two daughters.For more info about our guests and episode transcripts click here To support the work of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust click hereBuy Julian's book, Madhouse at the End of the Earth hereSeason 4 of A Voyage to Antarctica is made possible with support from Hurtigruten Expeditions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alok Jha talks to Guinness World Record-breaking polar explorer Preet Chandi MBE – known as Polar Preet – about her extraordinary, inspiring and boundary-breaking achievements in Antarctica.In 2022, Preet became the ninth woman in history to ski solo to the South Pole and the first woman of colour to complete a solo expedition on the continent. The next year, Preet set out on another adventure: covering 922 miles in 70 days and breaking two Guinness world records for the longest solo unsupported one-way polar ski journey for a woman and overall. After we spoke to her, Preet went back to Antarctica – this time to attempt a speed record for the fastest woman to complete a solo South Pole ski expedition, covering 702 miles of Antarctic ice in 31 days, 13 hours and 19 minutes.www.ukaht.orgSeason 4 of A Voyage to Antarctica is made possible with support from Hurtigruten Expeditions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alok Jha talks to climate scientist Dr Tamsin Edwards about how her pioneering work in modelling the impact of ice sheet and glacier melt on rising sea levels is predicting the future of the planet. Tamsin is an award-winning science communicator, including through her blog for the Public Library of Science, articles for the Guardian, and co-presenting the BBC Radio 4 series “39 Ways to Save the Planet”. She recently wrote an essay about the consequences of rising temperatures worldwide – and how to stop them – for Greta Thunberg’s The Climate Book.  Tamsin regularly provides advice on climate science to the public, policy makers, media, business and charities. She was a Lead Author of the Sixth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was published in 2021. In 2023, Tamsin will be the first Parliamentary “Thematic Research Lead” for Climate & Environment, a role based on the concept of Chief Scientific Advisers – responsible for bringing about a step change in the way climate research feeds into Parliament’s scrutiny, legislation and debate. https://www.ukaht.org/antarctica-in-sight/podcasts/ Season 3 of A Voyage to Antarctica is made possible with support from Hurtigruten Expeditions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alok Jha talks to Marine Biologist Dr Huw Griffiths about the weird & wonderful life that is being discovered underwater in Antarctica; teaching us incredible things about our planet’s deep past, and even revealing some secrets of the universe. Huw has worked for the British Antarctic Survey for over 20 years, studying the animals that live at the bottom of the sea around Antarctica and the Arctic. He also studies the potential effects of marine protected areas, climate change, human impacts and pollution on these unique ecosystems, and has participated in and led multiple expeditions to both poles, studying everything from the beaches to the deep sea.https://www.ukaht.org/antarctica-in-sight/podcasts/ Season 3 of A Voyage to Antarctica is made possible with support from Hurtigruten Expeditions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alok Jha talks to award-winning history broadcaster and best-selling author Dan Snow about being part of the Endurance22 mission and what it was like to witness the extraordinary moment Sir Ernest Shackleton’s lost ship was found at the bottom of the Weddell Sea. Dan has made dozens of TV shows for the BBC, Discovery, and other broadcasters and hosts one of the world’s biggest history podcasts, with millions of listeners every month. He is the founder and Creative Director of History Hit TV, an on-demand history channel that’s been described by the Wall Street Journal as ‘Netflix for History.’ With vast numbers of paying subscribers, Dan has proved a pioneer of digital history broadcasting; according to the Times is now "the Mark Zuckerberg of Spitfires, the Elon Musk of the King Tiger Tank.”Dan has worked on every continent, from the Yukon gold fields and Maori hill forts to the warzones of Syria and the Congo. When not making history shows, Dan hauls his three children around historical sites, preferably by boat.https://www.ukaht.org/antarctica-in-sight/podcasts/Season 3 of A Voyage to Antarctica is made possible with support from Hurtigruten Expeditions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.