When it rains, it pours—five planes arrived last week at the Pole. The South Pole station population tripled, and many of the new arrivals were IceCubers. The two new winterovers for the upcoming season, Camille and Alicia, were warmly welcomed out on the ice by the outgoing winterovers, Joe and Ilya, with a fancy, cardboard […]
Despite making up roughly 85% of all matter in the universe, the fundamental nature of dark matter (DM) still eludes scientists. Thus far, no experiment has been able to determine what dark matter is made of. One way scientists are probing for DM is by looking at the production of ordinary particles when two DM […]
After the first group of IceCubers spent a couple of days acclimating and reviewing the work needed to get the drill camp up and running, the crew went straight to work. The first order of business? Shoveling. And lots of it. They managed to shovel out most of the buildings in the drill camp. The […]
The first flight bringing summer crew to the South Pole finally arrived. It was a Basler plane, which brought 12 arrivals but left with three of the winterovering crew. IceCube’s current winterovers Joe and Ilya are still at the Pole, waiting for their replacements to arrive. Even with the first arrivals, the week was relatively […]
The first week of the final field season for the IceCube Upgrade started out with delays. Figures. Of course, even though that’s not what you hope for, uncooperative weather at the South Pole is a fact of life, something to deal with in stride. The first group of IceCubers for the Upgrade season had to […]
Things were quieter at the Pole last week than they might have been. Uncooperative weather delayed the opening flight of the season, so the new people they had been expecting didn’t show up. But there were more transitioning flights, like the previous week, one of which delivered the first fresh produce the winterovers have seen […]
Someone has to be first. This season, the first plane to arrive at the South Pole was the Basler plane shown above (and below), which was just stopping through on its way from Rothera Station to McMurdo. A small Twin Otter also landed at the Pole last week, another flight en route to McMurdo. Soon […]
Earlier this month, more than 150 participants took part in the fall IceCube Collaboration meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah. The meeting was hosted by the University of Utah at the L.S. Skaggs Applied Science Building on campus. The official meeting kicked off with opening remarks from University of Utah physics and astronomy department chair […]
The summer season personnel have not yet begun arriving at the Pole, but the winterover crew needs some time to get ready for them, so preparations are underway. There are lots of things to do, one of which of course is snow removal. Above we see the IceCube Lab (clearly now…thanks, Sun!) with lots of […]
“Messengers,” an immersive documentary featuring IceCube, is now playing internationally across a series of film festivals this fall. The new film by Canadian director Jeffrey Zablotny features the South Pole neutrino experiment as part of a surreal, poetic exploration of three groundbreaking particle physics experiments across the world. From a sealed laboratory carved into a […]