• Journey through space and time

    On Wednesday, 2 July 2025, the Polarstern will set sail from Tromsø, Norway, embarking on an expedition to the Arctic Ocean. Over the next two months, an international research team will analyse the feedback [...] parallel airborne campaign will complement the measurements and, at the outset of the expedition, the Polarstern will support the first ice testing of the new French Tara Polar Station research platform.

  • Submission of proposals

    guidelines how to issue a proposal. You represent a small team who wants to jointly conduct research on POLARSTERN? In this case, you can submit a proposal for secondary use. The number of team members should not [...] may submit a proposal for main use. You should though, bear in mind that the planning period for POLARSTERN corresponds to 3 years. Since autumn 2017, a review panel, ”Gutachterpanel Forschungsschiffe” (GPF) [...] (GPF), organizes the review and evaluation of the proposals for ship time on RV POLARSTERN and HEINCKE. The GPF has the mandate to evaluate the proposals for German research vessels and to make recommendations

  • How is the ecosystem around the Antarctic Peninsula changing?

    Polarstern expedition draws to a close in Bremerhaven
    In the autumn, the waters surrounding the Antarctic Peninsula were still home to large quantities of krill and salps, ready to spawn. Thanks to [...] such changes was a central topic during this year’s Antarctic season on board the research vessel Polarstern, which will end when, on Monday 11 June 2018, the ship returns to its homeport, Bremerhaven, after

  • Stormy Departures

    February 2016
    At midnight between the 19-20th of February we finally had the get-go for the FS Polarstern PS97 Expedition. It was a long way to this very point. An advance group had arrived in Punta Arenas [...] containers from the previous Antarctic Expedition PS96 with our materials. Unfortunately the FS Polarstern could not access the Mardones container loading pier in Punta Arenas, as it was still being occupied

  • Antarctic Biology

    ner-Institut) Zooplankton time series of the Polarstern expeditions Background Several long-term data sets exist which have been collected on RV Polarstern for the past 30 years but these have never previously [...] particularly for the Weddell Sea and adjacent areas such as the Scotia and Lazarev Seas Summary of Polarstern stations in the Antarctic where zooplankton was sampled and analyzed (Photo: Alfred-Wegener-Institut)

  • OBS studies

    vent fields during expedition PS137 on board the icebreakers Polarstern and Kronprins Haakon. Icebreakers Kronprins Haakon and Polarstern at the Aurora Hydrothermal Ventfield (Photo: Alfred-Wegener-Institut)

  • Ship Cruises

    Southampton National Oceanographic Centre 'Porquepine Abyssal Plain'. RV Polarstern PS93.2 und PS99.2 SeaPump went with RV Polarstern, PS93.2 und PS99.2, to the long-term observatory of Alfred-Wegener-Institute

  • Week 8: Returning to Svalbard

    2017
    After concluding our 4 th ice station at the northernmost location of this expedition, Polarstern set a south-westerly course, heading for the position of our well-known PASCAL ice floe of PS 106/1 [...] mostly gentle passage through the ice. Our journey was inter-spaced with stations where we set out Polarstern’s rubber boats Laura and Luisa to sample the surface microlayer, conducted CTD casts and performed

  • Highlights

    prize for Early Career Researchers (ECR). Both are working on geoscientific data sets from the FS Polarstern-EASI expeditions in order to decipher the glacial and climate history of East Antarctica more reliably [...] reliably. > Bernd Rendel Price 2025 > First amber find on the Antarctic continent > Research vessel Polarstern sets course for East Antarctica

  • Research Vessel and cutter

    The fleet of the Alfred Wegener Institute RV Polarstern RV Mya II RV Heincke MB Aade FS Uthörn Old Uthörn