Every second, 100 trillion neutrinos pass through the human body. These tiny, almost massless particles travel tremendous distances through space while carrying information about their sources and are created by some of the most energetic phenomena in the universe. But neutrinos are incredibly difficult to detect, requiring a one-of-a-kind detector that can “see” these nearly […]
So, you’ve arrived at the Geographic South Pole—or have you? The sign might not help much on its own, but now that the sun is out we can see where we are from the surroundings (yes, it’s the geographic South Pole). Below is a close-up view of the current 2022 South Pole marker, which was […]
Now there’s a bright sun! And it looks like it’s shining over a body of water with choppy waves. But that’s just an illusion, stemming from the shadows cast by a low sun over the rough icy surface at the South Pole. There’s another apparition above, where something appears to be stretching across the entire […]
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory is one of a growing number of science initiatives to use scalable cloud infrastructure to process massive datasets. […]
Last week was another quiet week at the Pole. And it was cloudy and windy again, with the slowly rising sun mostly obscured in the sky. IceCube’s winterovers were paged a few times to go out to the IceCube Lab, so they were out and about in the cloudy, windy landscape. Above we see the […]
There’s nothing wrong with “quiet,” especially where detector operations are concerned. That’s a good thing. And last week was relatively quiet at the Pole. IceCube’s winterovers did have to trek out to the IceCube Lab anyway, though, for some hands-on work for a routine operation. On their walk, Moreno captured some nice photos of the […]
IceCube collaborator and Harvard physics professor Carlos A. Argüelles-Delgado was chosen as one of Science News’ 2022 SN 10: Scientists to Watch. For the seventh year, Science News SN 10: Scientists to Watch list features 10 early- and mid-career scientists driven by their curiosity and sense of wonder and moved to solve some of the world’s biggest problems. Every year, Science […]
At present, one of the long-standing astronomical mysteries is the origin of cosmic rays, high-energy charged particles hurtling through space at the speed of light. Upon entering the atmosphere, they interact with atoms and produce an air shower of secondary particles, including nearly massless subatomic particles called neutrinos. Although very little is known about high-energy […]
Last week, over 200 members of the IceCube community descended upon the University of Wisconsin–Madison for its fall collaboration meeting, which was hosted by the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center (WIPAC). For the second time this year, the biannual collaboration meeting was held in person, with virtual offerings for those who could not attend. The […]
The early part of last week at the Pole was a little quiet, with just some troubleshooting stemming from a software crash. But then things picked up. It was the time of year when the flags around the ceremonial Pole are swapped out for fresh ones. These flags take quite a beating from the elements […]