The winterover crew gathered at the geographic South Pole for their annual group shot.
It was a relatively quiet week for the IceCube detector, but busy in general for the station. It’s that time of year, post sunrise, when preparations for summer arrivals are in full swing. […]
The last thing you want to forget to pack when you’re off to the South Pole for a year is … your lederhosen. Afterall, Oktoberfest is among the many things that winterovering folks celebrate at the station. […]
With the sun now up, outdoor preparations for summer activity at the South Pole station will move into higher gear. Calm weather last week provided an opportunity to groom the skiway, shown in this image, where the Earth’s shadow is still visible in the sky as a blue band just above the horizon. […]
Sunrise is slowly coming along at the South Pole, with some refracted light showing over the horizon on clear days. The impending orange glow appears to be approaching the ICL in this image. […]
The landscape at the South Pole continues to brighten, making it perhaps harder to ignore the extent of snow accumulation at the IceCube Lab. But snow removal wasn’t on the table last week, which was a quiet one all around for the IceCube winterovers. […]
Although the sunrise is still not officially here, the South Pole is enjoying a period of twilight. The horizon is clearly visible in the direction of the sun and is showing some characteristic orange color. The photo shows this nicely, with the added effect that reflection in the station windows gives the appearance of a clear view through the windows of the continuous horizon. […]
The South Pole station’s windows were exposed last week, after being covered up (decoratively, we might add) for over four months now. Outside, it still looks more like night than day, but things will gradually brighten up, and then the windows might need to be covered for a different reason—to promote a better sleeping environment. […]
The sun is not yet up, but the sky is definitely brightening in its direction. The image below, however, shows that it’s still early twilight and generally quite dark at the Pole. This photo was taken at the same location and time as the one above, just in the opposite direction—quite the contrast. […]
The previous week’s feature image showed the South Pole Telescope with the moon setting behind it. Here we see it again, but set against an aurora backdrop while its dish is scanning the sky for CMB (cosmic microwave background) mapping. […]
It’s still dark at the South Pole, with sunrise not for a while yet. So don’t be confused—that was the moon, not the sun, setting behind the South Pole Telescope. Once it had set, some bright and lively green auroras took over the sky. […]