The explorers are now just under seven miles from the North Pole; fingers crossed they make it there during today’s travel, undertaking their final scientific research at the top of the world.  

But did you know that the Arctic is actually host to two North Poles? Here’s a few facts about the geographic North Pole to which they’re headed, and the magnetic North Pole, that lies around 600 miles south of the team’s current location. 

Geographic North Pole 

The geographic North Pole is defined as the point in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets the Earth's surface. Also known as ‘True North’, it is found at 90° latitude and is the point at which all lines of longitude converge. 

Located almost in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, the North Pole is situated about 450 miles (725 km) north of Greenland, and if our explorers make it, they will be stood on sea ice above seawater that stretches to a depth of 13,410 feet. 

The nearest land is usually said to be Kaffeklubben Island, off the northern coast of Greenland about 700 km (440 mi) away, though some non-permanent gravel banks are thought to lie slightly closer.

In most places on Earth, local time is defined by latitude and is more-or-less synchronized to the position of the sun in the sky. However, at the North Pole the sun rises and sets only once per year, so this line of reasoning fails and no particular time zone has been assigned there. Instead, our explorers use GMT and BST, convenient to the team at HQ with whom they stay in constant contact. 

One of the earliest expeditions to set out with the explicit intention of reaching the North Pole was that of British naval officer William Edward Parry. In 1827 he reached latitude 82°45′ North, which remained the highest latitude attained for 49 years. 

Robert Peary, his partner Matthew Henson, and four Inuit are generally credited with being the first to reach the pole on foot in April 1909, although this remains the subject of some debate, with many suspecting that they missed it by a few miles. 

Some 17 years later in 1926, only twenty-three years after the first manned flight by the Wright brothers, Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett became the first people to reach the pole by airplane. 

It wasn’t until over thirty years later that the pole was reached from under the water, when the U.S. atomic submarine Nautilus became the first vessel to cruise under it in 1958. 

Magnetic North Pole 

During the sixteenth century, mariners believed that somewhere in the North was a magnetic mountain that was the source of attraction they were observing in their compasses. 

It was Sir William Gilbert, physician to Queen Elizabeth I, who suggested that the Earth itself was a giant magnet and that this directing force actually originated inside the Earth. He was also the first to define the North Magnetic Pole as the point where the Earth's magnetic field points vertically downwards. This is the definition used nowadays, but it would be several hundred years before the nature of the Earth's magnetic field was understood properly.

We now know that the planet's inner core is made of solid iron, surrounding which is a molten outer core. As the Earth spins on its axis, the inner core spins as well, and it spins at a different rate than the outer core. This creates a dynamo effect, or convections and currents within the core rather like a giant electromagnet. It is this that creates the Earth's magnetic field. 

The position of the magnetic North Pole is moving continually. It wanders daily in a roughly elliptical path around an average position, and may frequently be as much as 80 kilometers away from this average position when the Earth's magnetic field is disturbed. This movement is thought to be due to changes in the convection in the core. 

The National Geomagnetic Program of Geological Survey of Canada monitors the movement of the magnetic North Pole. In 2005 they estimated it to be at 82.7°N 114.4°W. In 2009, it was moving toward Russia at almost 40 miles (64 km) per year due to magnetic changes in the Earth's core. 

Some scientists believe the Earth's magnetic field is reversing, and that some day compasses may point south instead of north.

Explorer Team position at 13:00 BST on 11.05.10: 89.53.16N 73.42.57 W