Last week at the Pole brought claims of auroras in the skies overhead. No photos to go with those claims—not yet anyway, but those will surely come in the days ahead. In the meantime, the clear sky (without auroras) was beautiful in its even and gradual gradation from blue to orange along the horizon. And […]
Ahh…twilight—that magical time when our surroundings seem to soften under the diminishing light of day. At the South Pole, twilight is a lengthy process that can take weeks, with the distant horizon still lit by the slowly setting sun. They’ll begin to see a few stars, and maybe some auroras, before full darkness envelopes the […]
As with the previous week, last week’s weather at the Pole was a little cloudy, not the best for getting good glimpses of the one-and-only sunset (it will be a while before they see the sun again). Fortunately, there were a few moments when the skies cleared, and most of the crew took the opportunity […]
Long shadows are getting even longer. The sun hasn’t quite set completely at the Pole, but it’s very close. The weather last week was rather cloudy and windy. If it continues like that next week, the skies might be uncooperative for getting nice sunset photos. In the meantime, the images here were captured in a […]
IceCube’s winterovers started off last week with continued detector troubleshooting from the previous week. Later in the week, they joined a South Pole webcast and gave an outreach presentation on their experience as winterovers. They also took advantage of being outdoors for some emergency response training to trek out to the IceCube Lab and get […]
Last week was somewhat busy at the South Pole for IceCube’s winterovers. There were a couple of troubleshooting issues regarding the detector, and a trip or two out to the IceCube Lab (ICL). That’s Moreno below checking the status of some fans on computers in the ICL. On the recreational side of things, the winterovers […]
It’s getting colder and colder at the South Pole. And when temperatures get too low, the winterovers can’t use snow vehicles to get around. But IceCube’s winterovers still had snow accumulation measurements to take last week, and the weather was not looking too favorable. Luckily, they did manage to find some open windows of opportunity […]
Seasons come and seasons go. At the South Pole, you get only two seasons, and last week the South Pole station closed for…winter! (Isn’t it always winter there?) The last two planes carrying away summer workers left the Pole last week. The remaining winterovers said their final good-byes and then set themselves to the tasks […]
Last week was quiet for the IceCube detector but not so quiet for the South Pole station—lots of activity going on there. The third and final South Pole traverse of the season, SPOT 3, arrived with its long load of fuel bladders, shown above and below, under a sun halo. SPOT3 was there just long […]
Last week, after quite a few delays, the last 25 members of the South Pole winter crew arrived. It is not typical for half of the crew to arrive so late in the season, but international Covid precautions among other things have complicated the logistics of preparations and travel. The station will be closing soon […]