The moon was out big time last week, and it was bright enough to allow the IceCube winterovers to turn off their headlamps a bit while they were working outside. Both the above and below images show Josh in the middle of removing the cover from the IceAct telescope that is on the roof of […]
News
Celebrating IceCube’s first decade of discovery
It was the beginning of a grand experiment unlike anything the world had ever seen. Ten years ago today, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory fully opened its eyes for the first time. Over the course of the previous seven years, dozens of intrepid technicians, engineers, and scientists had traveled to the South Pole—one of the coldest, […]
Week 16 at the Pole
Among all the healthy activities at the Pole lately is the “Climb to Mt. Everest” challenge, performed by climbing the stairs of the “beer can” (the vertical tower at the end of the station that connects the levels). The tower has 94 steps, and winterovers Josh and Martin are doing five beer cans a day, […]
Week 15 at the Pole
The first auroras of the season are in! This is always such an exciting time, not only for those folks lucky enough to be at the Pole but also for those of us who only get the long-distance armchair experience. In IceCube winterover Martin’s selfie below, it almost looks as though he is somehow creating […]
Week 14 at the Pole
So, how many South Poles are there? Above we see a beautiful sunset image taken last week at the Pole. This location is the ceremonial South Pole, easy to identify by the lineup of flags representing the original signatories of the Antarctic Treaty. It’s a place for photo ops, but it’s not what’s generally referred […]
For the first time, IceCube looks for neutrinos from solar flares
Our sun shines not only in light but also in neutrinos. These tiny, chargeless, and nearly massless particles are produced deep in the sun’s core, but we also expect them to be created in the solar atmosphere, either by collisions of cosmic rays or during solar flares. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole, a […]
Week 13 at the Pole
Let the twilight begin! Even though twilight occurs only twice a year at the South Pole, it is a drawn out process that lasts weeks instead of hours. At sunset, the light outside slowly dwindles before leaving the Pole in complete darkness. Even then, it’s not always fully dark since, while the sun may be […]
Week 12 at the Pole
It was all about the sun last week at the Pole. Weather conditions allowed the winterovers to glimpse the green flash as the sun finally set below the horizon. IceCube winterover Martin was in the right place at the right time to capture a photograph of it, above (and it wasn’t his first time). The […]
IceCube hosts 10-week virtual high school program with Marquette, SDSMT, WIPAC
Since 2013, the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center (WIPAC) has hosted afterschool internships at least once a year to provide high school students in the Madison area the opportunity to work on real-world physics experiments. Through the internship, participating students have been able to meet working astrophysicists, learn computer-programming skills, and contribute to data analysis […]
Ignacio Taboada elected IceCube’s next spokesperson
Darren Grant has seen quite a few exciting things during his time as IceCube spokesperson. From pinpointing a cosmic accelerator to measuring a tau neutrino appearance to detecting a Glashow resonance event, the last four years have been exciting for the South Pole neutrino telescope and the team of scientists behind it. But Grant, a […]