Pyotr Kapitsa's sons Sergey and Andrey were born in Cambridge, United Kingdom, where their father was conducting research.

[1] In 1958 Kapitsa defended his Candidate of Sciences thesis "Morphology of East Antarctic Ice Sheet" («Морфология ледникового покрова Восточной Антарктиды»), and in 1968 he defended his Doctor of Science thesis "Subglacial relief of Antarctica" («Подлёдный рельеф Антарктиды»).

[1] At the end of the 19th century Russian scientist Peter Kropotkin proposed the idea of the existence of fresh water under Antarctic ice sheets.

Kropotkin's theory was later developed by Russian glaciologist I.A Zotikov, who wrote his PhD thesis on this subject in 1967.

[6] Andrey Kapitsa used seismic soundings in the region of Vostok Station made during the Soviet Antarctic Expeditions in 1959 and 1964 to measure the thickness of the ice sheet, discovering two spikes of reflection (one from bedrock and another from the sediment layer).