Elon Musk announces Starlink internet active across all 7 continents, including Antarctica

Elon Musk in a tweet on Monday revealed that the Starlink satellite internet service is now active “on all continents, including Antarctica.” Operated by SpaceX, Starlink is a constellation of artificial satellites providing internet service to more than 40 countries across the seven continents.

As per the information available in the public domain, Starlink's internet functions by sending information through the vacuum of space, where it travels much faster as compared to the fibre-optic cable and also has a comparatively wider reach.

In a previous tweet posted by Musk on September 17, he had assured that Starlink was meant for “peaceful use". This came after a Russian delegate raised concerns about ‘civilian satellites’ ending up being a ‘legitimate target for retaliation’ during a recent United Nations meeting on reducing space threats.

SpaceX setting new milestones 

The big announcement comes days after it was revealed that a research outpost run by the United States Antarctic Program (USAP), the McMurdo Station, situated on the south tip of Ross Island, Antarctica was confirmed to be receiving the benefits of the internet services provided by Starlink.  

The National Science Foundation of the United States tweeted on Wednesday, “NSF-supported USAP scientists in #Antarctica are over the moon! Starlink is testing polar service with a newly deployed user terminal at McMurdo Station, increasing bandwidth and connectivity for science support."

As per SpaceX’s website, Starlink functions “with high speeds and latency as low as 20ms in most locations and enables video calls, online gaming, streaming, and other high data rate activities that historically have not been possible with satellite internet.”  

SpaceX had started launching Starlink satellites into the orbit back in 2019. Since then, the company has successfully launched more than 3,000 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit. Furthermore, SpaceX has plans to initiate the launches of Starlink Version 2 satellites the following year, which are much larger and more efficient than the current iteration. The SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk claimed that the next-gen spacecraft will be able to beam service directly to smartphones.