The theme for last week at the Pole was “tall.” IceCube winterover Marc captured a nice photograph of the moon shining brightly through some striated clouds, with the ARO tower shown front and center. ARO stands for Atmospheric Research Observatory, which is located in the Clean Air Sector at the South Pole. In the summer […]
For such a remote, isolated location, the South Pole tends to have a lot of activity most weeks. Last week, IceCube’s winterovers were treated to a middle-of-the-night (!) page for issues on a couple of DOMs, but power cycling resolved things so at least they were able to get back to sleep pretty quickly. The […]
Christmas in July continued last week with all sorts of activities, ranging from a pool tournament to a pie-eating contest. And for those who enjoy competitive eating, they weren’t limited to just pies—a “donuts on a string” eating contest was also part of the festivities. In addition, the station held a Christmas trivia night and […]
A barren landscape, the South Pole is actually a desert. It’s not the kind of desert most people imagine, with lots of sand and heat and maybe a camel ambling by. Instead of sand, there’s snow. But almost all of that snow has blown in from more coastal regions of the continent, ushered in from […]
Not everyone celebrates Christmas in July, but they do at the South Pole station, where traditions prevail. Last week started off the festivities with the appearance of a tree and presents in the galley. More activities and decorations are planned for upcoming weeks. The weather was nice and cold as a fitting complement to the […]
For those who spend a year living at the South Pole, they are treated to glorious night skies in the winter season. Last week was a case in point, with displays of bright auroras, lots of stars, and glimpses of the Milky Way. Winterovers also get to experience a multitude of South Pole station traditions […]
Last week at the Pole it was all about the sky. There were days with perfectly clear skies and some of the brightest auroras of the season. If the photo above seems to suggest a little wizardry action behind the aurora, it might be a result of watching too much Harry Potter—the station organized a […]
It’s getting close to midwinter, when people in Antarctica, and other places, celebrate the southern winter solstice. In anticipation, South Pole station personnel took some group photos (above is one of them) to use as midwinter greeting cards, traditionally shared with other Antarctic stations. Last week at the Pole, IceCube’s winterovers spent a lot of […]
While most of us up north are enjoying longer and brighter days as summertime gears up, the South Pole remains settled in winter. The image above of frosted and snowed-in IceCube drill towers is a wintry scene indeed. Though, to be fair, the drill towers were rather snow covered in summer as well. (Here’s an […]
Some weeks are busier than others, and last week was one of them, at least as far as the IceCube detector goes. There were just a number of issues that seemed to arise one after the other, like hard drive errors and DOM warnings—nothing IceCube’s intrepid winterovers couldn’t handle. But if you’re going to be […]