Peer into explorers' Antarctic huts with Google Maps

Web giant Google has posted pictures of Antarctic huts used by polar explorers Sir Ernest Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott online as part of the latest extension of the Google's Maps service. VIDEO INSIDE

Web giant Google has posted pictures of Antarctic huts used by polar explorers Sir Ernest Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott online as part of the latest extension of the Google's Maps service.

The prefabricated wooden cabins were erected in 1908 and 1911 respectively, and were used as bases for the explorers' attempts to reach the South Pole.

Google said it had carried out the fish-eye lens photography project to provide school children and others with an 'insight into how these men lived for months at a time'.

Users can navigate the 360-degree photographs to see some of the kit and supplies used by both expeditions.

According to the BBC, Shackleton''s hut is located at Cape Royds, where the explorer and nine other team members left their ship, the Nimrod, to stay during the winter and still houses about 5,000 of the team''s personal possessions, including books, clothing and canned food, which have been preserved by the cold temperatures.

Scott's base at Cape Evans was erected three years later and still contains over 8,000 artifacts from his doomed adventure and many items of food abandoned when his team set out to the pole

Boxes of Tate sugar cubes, Heinz Tomato Ketchup bottles and clothing can be seen in the uploaded pictures from the location.

Scott and four others did reach the South Pole in January 1912, but found they had been beaten to the spot by a Norwegian expedition led by Roald Amundsen. The members of Scott''s party died of the freezing conditions during their return journey.

Shackleton's expedition was the first to climb the volcanic Mount Erebus, but bad weather and diminished supplies forced them to turn back about 156km before reaching the South Pole.