Haven't signed into your Scholastic account before?
Teachers, not yet a subscriber?
Subscribers receive access to the website and print magazine.
You are being redirecting to Scholastic's authentication page...
Announcements & Tutorials
Explore Primary Sources
How Students and Families Can Log In
1 min.
Setting Up Student View
Sharing Articles with Your Students
2 min.
Interactive Activities
4 min.
Sharing Videos with Students
Using Upfront with Educational Apps
5 min.
Join Our Facebook Group!
Exploring the Archives
Powerful Differentiation Tools
3 min.
World and U.S. Almanac & Atlas
Subscriber Only Resources
Access this article and hundreds more like it with a subscription to The New York TImes Upfront magazine.
Article Options
Presentation View
An Icy Mystery Solved
Almost 170 years after its mysterious disappearance, the HMS Terror has been discovered at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. The Terror was one of two ships that vanished in 1848 while searching for the Northwest Passage, a route connecting the northern Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In the late 15th century, European ship captains began braving treacherous Arctic icebergs in hopes of finding a shortcut around North America so they could ship goods more quickly. The Terror, along with a companion ship, the Erebus, and their English captain, Sir John Franklin, got caught in ice, and he and more than 120 crewmen eventually perished. Franklin is still a hero in England, despite never finding the Northwest Passage. For now, the Terror and Erebus (which was discovered in 2014) remain at the bottom of the Arctic. But the long elusive goal of traversing a Northwest Passage is now possible in warmer months because climate change is melting much of the Arctic ice cover. That melting concerns Canadian meteorologist Roger Provost. As he told SpaceDaily.com, “In a few years, it will completely disappear.”