Dome Argus is located on the massive East Antarctic Ice Sheet, and is the highest ice feature of Antarctica. Dome A is a lofty ice prominence, the highest rooftop of the Antarctic Plateau, and the elevation visually is not noticeable. Below this enormous dome, underneath at least of ice sheet, lies the Gamburtsev Mountain Range, about the size of the European Alps. The name "Dome Argus" was given by the Scott Polar Research Institute from Greek mythology. Argus built the ship Argo in which Jason and the Argonauts traveled to Colchis in search of the Golden Fleece. This site is one of the driest locations on Earth and receives of snow per year. Due to this, as well as calm weather, this site is an excellent location to obtain ice core samples for the research of past climates. Temperatures at Dome A fall below almost every winter.
Exploration
Details of the morphology of this feature were determined by the SPRI-NSF-TUD airborne radio echo sounding program between the years 1967 and 1979. In January 2005 a team from the Chinese National Antarctic Research Expeditions traversed from Zhongshan Station to Dome A and located the highest point of the ice sheet by GPS survey at 80°22’S 77°21’E on Jan 18. This point is near one end of an elongate ridge which is a major ice divide and has an elevation difference along its length of only a few meters. An automatic weather station was deployed at Dome A, and a second station was installed approximately halfway between the summit and the coast at a site called Eagle. These AWS are operated as part of an ongoing collaboration between China and Australia which also includes a third AWS at 70°50'S, 77°04'E, above sea level which has operated since January 2002. The station at Dome A is powered by solar cells and diesel fuel and requires yearly service and refuelling. The coldest air temperature recorded by thermometer at Dome A since January 2005 thus far was in July 2005:. This may have been beaten by an unconfirmed reading of in June 2019. The lowest air temperature ever measured on the surface of the Earth was recorded by satellite on August 10, 2010 between Dome Argus and Dome Fuji. Analysis of satellite data and atmospheric models shows that Ridge A, which is located southeast from Dome A, is potentially an even better location to look for the lowest temperatures on Earth.
Observatory
The Polar Research Institute of China deployed a robotic observatory called PLATO on the dome in January 2008. PLATO was designed and built by the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia to provide a platform from which astronomical observations and site-testing could be conducted. Various institutions from Australia, US, China and the UK provided instruments that were deployed with PLATO, these instruments included CSTAR, Gattini, PreHEAT, Snodar, Nigel and the PLATO web cameras. The Institute of Remote Sensing Applications, Chinese Academy of Sciences established a wireless network technology based observation system called Dome A-WSN on the dome in January 2008. The Kunlun Station, China's third station in Antarctica, was set up at the dome on January 27, 2009. Thus far the Antarctic Kunlun Station is suitable as a summer station, but there are plans to develop it further and build an airfield nearby to ease servicing, as it is not reachable by helicopters.
