HMS Endurance is an ice breaker in the service of the British Royal Navy. Every northern autumn she heads to Antarctica to support British Antarctic bases and projects. The ship has a website dedicated to it, Visit and Learn, which tracks its travels and posts updates on its doings.

Now you can also track HMS Endurance in Google Earth. An enterprising coder has used the publicly available data on the website to create a constantly updated file pinpointing the ship's current and past locations on Google's popular virtual globe.

Here's how to follow along with the HMS Endurance using Google Earth:

If you haven't already done so, download Google Earth and install it. It's free. Then, click on this link. It will result in a file being downloaded to your desktop, where it will then open in Google Earth. (If it doesn't, open it from within Google Earth.) Click on the icons to see reports and pictures. Enjoy!

The person behind this great way to view HMS Endurance's activities this summer, "saellis", posted his work to Google Earth Community here. (Via Google Earth Blog)

Image credit: Google Earth