The sun has not quite set at the South Pole, but it’s low and the shadows are getting longer. Last week, IceCube’s winterovers were busy (working and playing) outdoors. Marc learned to launch a weather balloon, so he can join the rotation of volunteers to launch daily balloons as there’s no meteorologist stationed at the […]
Winter officially began last week at the Pole with the final flight departure (above) and the last traverse, SPOT3 (below), leaving the station. The plane carried away the few remaining summer personnel, who did not want to miss that flight since the next one out wouldn’t be for another eight months or so. So, who’s […]
As the sun continues its slow descent, the temperatures at the Pole have been dropping as well—last week they reached –40 °C (which also happens to be –40 °F), cold by anyone’s standards. Everyone at the South Pole station has been preparing for the upcoming station closing. The last shipment of fresh vegetables that they’ll […]
This aerial view of the IceCube Lab (ICL) suggests that last week’s kite-camera tests proved fruitful. The low sun and the long shadows indicate that summer is on its way out, although that’s a long, slow process at the South Pole. Meanwhile, IceCube’s winterovers have been keeping busy. Last week, they gave a few tours […]
Summer is indeed winding down at the Pole. Last week saw the departure of the two remaining IceCube summer personnel, leaving IceCube’s two intrepid winterovers on their own until next November. The week was full of activity, though, mostly focused on tasks related to the ARA project, like troubleshooting communications (which required digging out and […]
As far as sun dogs go, these are hard to beat. Maybe IceCube winterover Hrvoje has a way of attracting sundogs? He took the photo above, and last month, he posed in front of sun dogs for winterover Marc to capture the shot. Since it’s summer at the Pole, people were still coming and going […]
White dwarfs are very dense, compact objects that are one of the possibilities for the final evolutionary state of stars. If they happen to be in a binary system with another companion star, the white dwarf may pull material from the companion star onto its surface. In this case, if enough material is accumulated, a […]
The IceCube Collaboration, in conjunction with Kaggle, the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich Data Science Institute (MDSI), the Collaborative Research Center SFB 1258, Excellence Cluster ORIGINS, and PUNCH4NFDI, announces the launch of the IceCube – Neutrinos in Deep Ice project. This outreach project invites everyone to present a machine learning solution that tackles the […]
Last week’s main activity at the Pole involved digging, lots of digging (see below). Two ARA stations needed to be dug out for maintenance and repair tasks. One of the stations had over two meters of snow to remove from it, so it was a bit challenging—but many hands make light (or lighter) work. The […]
The LSST Corporation (LSSTC) and the IceCube Collaboration (IceCube) are pleased to announce a pilot childcare support program generously funded by the Heising-Simons Foundation. This partnership program, a landmark in multimessenger astronomy, will provide childcare funding for four conferences over the next 12 months—two LSSTC-sponsored conferences and two IceCube-sponsored conferences. The program is designed to […]