Last week was relatively quiet at the Pole. But with station opening just a few weeks away, the station personnel had their final all-hands meeting, at which they held their yearly raffle of flags that had been outside all winter. The harsh elements take a toll on these flags, so come summer, they get replaced, […]
For decades, physicists have theorized that the current best theory describing particle physics—the “Standard Model”—was not sufficient to explain the way the universe works. In the search for physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM), elusive particles called neutrinos might point the way. Neutrinos are sometimes called “ghost particles” because they so rarely interact with matter […]
Last week, the intrepid South Pole station winterovers got themselves together (all but two of them!) for an outdoor group photo. With the sun out, it’s easy to forget just how cold it is there. They picked a vantage point behind the South Pole Telescope where the other major facilities could be seen on both […]
It was sunrise last week at the Pole. But first, let’s take a look at that moon. IceCube winterover Martin was outside with his camera, and the image above shows how beautiful the sky looked opposite from the sunrise. The moon was full and low in the sky, while the horizon was blurred with hazy […]
Sunrise is a prolonged event at the South Pole. But even though it hasn’t “officially” arrived yet (it will be soon), they held their celebratory sunrise meal last week. The station galley staff put out an array of heavy hors d’oeuvres followed by a ribeye steak dinner (no photos, but we can use our imagination). […]
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a massive astroparticle physics experiment located at the South Pole, will be featured in two upcoming documentaries about neutrinos produced for the BBC and PBS NOVA. Sometimes called the world’s biggest and strangest telescope, IceCube comprises over 5,000 light sensors deployed in a cubic kilometer of ice at the South Pole. […]
It was a relatively quiet one last week at the Pole. IceCube’s winterovers performed a monthly calibration of IceTop DOMS and visited the IceCube Lab (ICL) to restart a crashed computer hub. While there, they also covered up the IceAct telescope situated on the ICL’s roof, pictured below in its frosty, post-winter state. IceAct operates […]
It’s now bright enough to see your way around outside at the Pole, which is great. Well, maybe, depending on your perspective. Sure, now you can leave your headlamps behind as you venture outdoors. But there’s a downside…the auroras are gone, and there are very few stars left visible in the sky. With the complete […]
Last week was a quiet one for IceCube, and the detector operated with a maximum possible weekly uptime of 99.95%. The brightening sky was beautiful as shown in the above image of the South Pole station. Station life was also reported to be quiet, but “quiet” doesn’t mean without any festivities. First up, they enjoyed […]
Last week, some of the winterovers walked out to the End of the World—that’s what they call the area that extends beyond the storage berms out on the ice—to take some photographs of the setting moon. It was bitterly cold, so they couldn’t use their cameras for long, but they did get in a few […]