China plans to send its 24th science inspection team to the South Pole at the end of this month and build an automatic observatory there next year.

The observatory will be set up at Dome Argus, the highest point of the Antarctic ice sheet, where scientists can obtain the data including the global climate changes and extraordinary natural phenomena, which is otherwise unavailable in other places in the world, said experts with the China Antarctic Astronomy Center.

The inspection team also recruited two astronomers from the National Astronomical Observatory and Purple Mountain Observatory under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. They will be the first Chinese astronomers who land the Antarctic area.

The two astronomers, along with the other team members, are scheduled to make it to Dome Argus at the end of December, where they will install and adjust the facilities of the observatory.

The observatory is aimed for astronomical addressing and defining the astronomical addressing parameters, said the experts with the center.

In 2005, a Chinese science inspection team made it to Dome Argus for the first time, which represented a breakthrough in the scientific research in the Antarctic area.

(Xinhua News Agency October 15, 2007)