Astronomers have found the very best place on Earth to observe the heavens. Now all they have to do is get there. Ridge A, as the spot is known, is located in Antarctica, six hundred miles from the South Pole and 13,297 feet above sea level. All things considered, it’s probably the very worst place on the surface of the planet for humans. As far as anyone knows, no person has ever even set foot there. But thanks to satellite data, scientists now know that Ridge A surpasses all other sites based on eight factors that impact the sharpness of observations, like cloud cover and atmospheric turbulence. “The astronomical images taken at Ridge A should be at least three times sharper than at the best sites currently used by astronomers,” said Will Saunders, an astronomer at the Anglo-Australian Observatory and visiting professor to UNSW, in a press release. “Because the sky there is so much darker and drier, it means that a modestly-sized telescope there would be as powerful as the largest te
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