Google researchers trek through Antarctic to add to Street View Major update adds huge areas of the Antarctic to Google Street View Backpack trekker camera used by researchers as they trekked through the snow and ice Campaigners warn privacy is being sacrificed in race between Google and Apple Trekking through the Antarctic ice and snow is already a tough job - but Google has persuaded researchers to go the extra mile and do it wearing their special street View backpack. The search giant has revealed a major update to its Antarctic images, adding a range of hard to reach places. It persuaded researchers at the Polar Geospatial Center to carry the trekker, a 42 pound backpack with 15 lenses. Bull Pass in the Murdo Dry Valleys: a relatively ice-free area on a continent where ice covers more than 99 percent of the land. Google's Trekker is a modified backpack that carries a 42-pound camera and battery. The Trekker is operated by a smart phone and consists of 15 lenses angled in a different direction so the images can be stitched together into 360-degree panoramic views. It is controlled by a smartphone, and images electronically stitched together. 'It's very exciting because there's so much more potential for it being useful to scientists,' said Cole Kelleher, acartographer and support coordinator at PGC, which is headquartered at the University of Minnesota. Kelleher captured most of the imagery using Google's Trekker, a modified backpack that carries a 42-pound camera and battery. It has previously been used to capture the Grand Canyon, the River Thames and hundreds of other areas around the world where Google's cars and trikes can't reach. The Internet giant recently unveiled its latest batch of panoramic imagery for its Google Maps and Google Earth applications that include some remote and stunning areas of Antarctica. PGC cartographer Cole Kelleher walks through the Adélie penguin colony at Cape Royds with the Google Street View camera strapped onto his back. The mobile Trekker camera was introduced last year and first used in Arizona's Grand Canyon. Photos are taken roughly every 2½ seconds while the walker is in motion. The basketball-sized ball that contains the camera sat about a foot above Kelleher's head, making the device a bit awkward to carry at times. 'It's very top heavy. ... That was probably the toughest part - taking care of it and trying not to damage it,' Kelleher told the Atlantic Sun. I told [Google] it would probably not come back in the condition it goes out in. 'You're out in the middle of nowhere. 'It's tough terrain - although I only fell about three times.' Many of the Street View images released are from the McMurdo Dry Valleys a relatively ice-free area on a continent where ice covers more than 99 percent of the land. The Cape Royal Adelie Penguin Colony: The Adélie Penguin, Pygoscelis adeliae, is a species of penguin common along the entire Antarctic coast. They are among the most southerly distributed of all seabirds. In 1840, French explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville named them for his wife, Adèle. Arena Valley in the Antarctic: An ice-free valley, between East Beacon and New Mountain, which opens to the south side of Taylor Glacier in Victoria Land. It was given this descriptive name by the Victoria University of Wellington Antarctic Expedition The terrain is often rocky and rough, with thick glaciers slumped over saddles like melted ice cream. Images like those of Arena Valley look like they could have been sent back from Mars. The imagery was shot during the course of field research by Kelleher and PGC geospatial analyst Spencer Niebuhr. The informal partnership between PGC and Google began more than two years ago. Last year, Google released the first batch of Antarctic Street View imagery that had been shot by PGC. A short distance from the Geographic South Pole is the Ceremonial South Pole, situated in front of the elevation station building - and it was added in an earlier Google project. It consists of a metallic, mirrored ball atop a ¿barber pole¿ plinth. Surrounding the marker in a semicircle are the flags of the 12 original Antarctic Treaty signatory nations, a tribute to Antarctica¿s preservation on the environment and dedication to scientific research. It included 3D explorable panoramas of the huts used by two fo the greatest Antarctic explorers - Ernest Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott. The huts have been preserved by the intense cold - and offer an insight into the grim conditions faced by Scott and Shackleton a century ago. The panoramas were created by a lightweight tripod camera with a fisheye lens - as Google had not yet developed its backpack. Scott'sHut2.jpg The interior of the hut has remained as it was when the explorers set sights on the South Pole In the winter of 1913, a British newspaper ran an advertisement to promote the latest imperial expedition to Antarctica, apparently placed by polar explorer by Ernest Shackleton. It read, 'Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success. The desolate exterior of Scott's hut illustrates the conditions the explorers had to face Shackleton's hut has been preserved exactly as it was for decades The 3D panoramas were created by backpack cameras with fisheye lenses Equipment in Scott's hut: This new imagery was collected with a lightweight tripod camera with a fisheye lens