With the sun just below the horizon and a full moon in the sky, this landscape could be confused for a daytime shot. It was a quiet week for the detector but there was plenty going on to keep folks busy at the station:
— a night off for galley staff brought other “chefs” to the kitchen for pizza making,
— Easter egg decorating meant a hunt for “neutrinos,” and
— World Table Top Game Day spawned a round of Carcassonne, a medieval-themed board game. […]
You may know that the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater is home to an observatory, giving people a look at the visual Universe. Many people don’t know, though, that Wisconsin played a major role in the construction and management of one of the world’s largest and most interesting telescopes, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, located at the South Pole in Antarctica. […]
You’d think it was science and adventure that lured these winterovers to the Pole, but it looks like it might be the food. Those are some nice looking plates. Each year the station holds a special celebratory dinner—the sunset dinner—the last one before the sun leaves them for a good long while. That’s something worth celebrating. […]
Someone is up high, quite high in fact. That’s the ARO (Atmospheric Research Observatory) tower, a good spot for surveying the landscape. ARO is a National Science Foundation facility used in support of scientific research related to atmospheric phenomena. Its long-term research program measures trends of important trace gases and aerosols and investigates the influence of these gases and aerosols on the Earth’s climate. They aren’t measuring gases inside the South Pole station’s greenhouse, but look what’s going on in there—lots of growth. What a difference two weeks make. […]
The lowering sun is providing for some great photos, like these long shadows in front of and behind the IceCube Lab (ICL). The winterovers spent some time doing various things out in the cold this week. They raised their country flags—Chile, the US, and the Philippines—on the roof of the ICL. They also helped out their neighbors in the SPUD experiment, moving a 300-lb mirror off the detector array. […]
What’s green and frilly and grows at the South Pole? Outside, nothing, but inside, we’re talking lettuce. Leafy greens, cucumbers, tomatoes…even cantaloupe—a variety of produce is grown in the South Pole greenhouse. These are the only fresh vegetables available from about mid-February to mid-October for the teams wintering over at the station. The sun has been getting lower, and they will soon be entrenched in their six months of darkness. Some fresh vegetables will at least brighten up their plates. […]
There’s work and then there’s play. And sometimes play can take a lot of work. Like building an igloo at the South Pole, for example—check it out. You can see it in progress during construction, above, and the view from inside, looking through the “sun roof,” after completion, below. The IceCube winterovers had cold temperatures and wind chills (below -60 °C) for their work, too, which was also outdoors this week. They performed a snow survey, in which they had to measure the height of all the posts located over the IceTop tanks (IceTop is the surface component of the IceCube detector). […]
A great shot of the last LC-130 leaving the station. It marks the beginning of the winter season, in which the Pole’s population remains steady, this year at 44 people. No one will be coming or going for a while, not until flights begin to arrive again October. About half of the winterovers are shown outside on the ice, below. And as tradition dictates, they ring in the beginning of winter with a showing of all three versions of the classic Antarctic horror film “The Thing.” […]
Everything coming to or leaving the Pole goes through McMurdo Station on the coast. And it’s a busy place—a complex logistics facility that includes a harbor, three airfields, and a heliport. Winterover Felipe Pedreros recently traveled through McMurdo and captured this shot of the Nathaniel B. Palmer, an icebreaker designed and built specifically for use by the U.S. Antarctic Program. Below is an aerial view captured on the flight to McMurdo. […]
For some, ice cream is a summertime treat. For others, it’s good just about anytime. Looks like the folks at the Pole fall into the “others” camp. They have ice cream on their menu daily, and this batch, made with liquid nitrogen, appears to be particularly rich and creamy. But there are healthier foods to be had as well. With a little help from the greenhouse, which is just getting started with some of their seedlings, they might be eating kale chips (or debuting some kale ice cream?) before too long. […]