Cold and life in Antarctica

The lowest directly measured near-surface air temperature on Earth was −89.2 °C, recorded at Vostok Station in Antarctica on July 21, 1983. Satellites have detected even lower temperatures at the snow surface on the East Antarctic Plateau, but those are measurements of surface thermal emission, not air temperature. Despite the extreme conditions, microorganisms adapted to cold and low light live in Antarctic ice and subglacial waters.