The Shackleton Inlet is a reentrant, about 16 km (10 mi) wide, between Cape Wilson

Cape Wilson (Ross Dependency)

Cape Wilson is a bold, rocky, snow-covered cape, forming the south-east end of the Nash Range and marking the northern entrance point to Shackleton Inlet on the western edge of the Ross Ice Shelf. It was discovered by Captain Robert F. Scott, Royal Navy, in December 1902, on his attempted trip to...

 and Cape Lyttelton

Cape Lyttelton

Cape Lyttelton is a cape forming the southern entrance point of Shackleton Inlet, along the western edge of the Ross Ice Shelf. Discovered by the Discovery expedition and named after Lyttelton, New Zealand. The Discovery started on the last lap of its journey south from Lyttelton, where very...

. It is occupied by the terminus of the Nimrod Glacier

Nimrod Glacier

The Nimrod Glacier is a major glacier about 135 km long, flowing from the polar plateau in a northerly direction through the Transantarctic Mountains between the Geologists and Miller Ranges, then northeasterly between the Churchill Mountains and Queen Elizabeth Range, and finally spilling...

 descending at a low gradient from the bordering highlands to the Ross Ice Shelf

Ross Ice Shelf

The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf of Antarctica . It is several hundred metres thick. The nearly vertical ice front to the open sea is more than 600 km long, and between 15 and 50 metres high above the water surface...

.

Discovered by Capt. Robert Falcon Scott

Robert Falcon Scott

Captain Robert Falcon Scott, CVO was a Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition, 1901–04, and the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition, 1910–13...

, in December 1902, while on his attempted trip to the South Pole

South Pole

The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole or Terrestrial South Pole, is one of the two points where the Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on the surface of the Earth and lies on the opposite side of the Earth from the North Pole...

. He was accompanied on this trip by Dr. Edward A. Wilson and Lt. (later Sir) Ernest Shackleton

Ernest Shackleton

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO, OBE was a notable explorer from County Kildare, Ireland, who was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration...

, for whom this inlet

Inlet

An inlet is a narrow body of water between islands or leading inland from a larger body of water, often leading to an enclosed body of water, such as a sound, bay, lagoon or marsh. In sea coasts an inlet usually refers to the actual connection between a bay and the ocean and is often called an...

was named.