DC-8 Returns to Punta Arenas

NASA’s DC-8 returns to Punta Arenas, Chile, after an eleven-hour flight on Oct. 21, 2009, to study sea ice in the Bellingshausen and Amundsen seas. Credit: NASA/Steve Cole

Punta Arenas  is the capital city of Chile’s southernmost region, Magallanes and Antartica Chilena. Therefore the city was officially renamed as Magallanes in 1927. Although in 1938 it was changed back to “Punta Arenas”. Also It is the largest city south of the 46th parallel south. As of 1977 Punta Arenas has been one of only two free ports in Chile. And the other one being Iquique, in the country’s far north. (Note that Punta Arenas itself is not a “free port”. Although rather outside the city; there is a small “zona franca” where certain products can be imported into the country under a reduced-tax regimen.)