Week 10 at the Pole

As the sun continues to lower at the South Pole, shadows lengthen and the sky gradually darkens. The station in general has been settling into its winter groove, with everyone “volunteering” in shared activities—dishpit, house mouse (cleaning), greenhouse checks, and trash collection—to keep things running smoothly throughout the winter. Last week, IceCube’s winterovers were also […]

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Week 9 at the Pole

Some things are worth waiting for. And the live interview that was scheduled last week as part of the viewing of all three “The Thing” movies is one of them, as the special guest was none other than John Carpenter, director of 1982’s “The Thing.” The director discussed his work and how they tried to […]

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IceCube observes seven astrophysical tau neutrino candidates

Neutrinos are tiny, weakly interacting subatomic particles that can travel astronomical distances undisturbed. As such, they can be traced back to their sources, revealing the mysteries surrounding the cosmos. High-energy neutrinos that originate from the farthest reaches beyond our galaxy are called astrophysical neutrinos and are the main subject of study for the IceCube Neutrino […]

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Improving in-ice particle shower models for reconstruction of IceCube events

The IceCube neutrino detector, embedded in a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice, searches for high-energy neutrinos from the farthest reaches of outer space. The pristine ice serves as a natural medium for detecting showers of secondary charged particles that result from many neutrino interaction types in the ice. Through a process called Cherenkov radiation, ultraviolet […]

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Week 8 at the Pole

Last week at the Pole was a time of team building. With the newest members of the winterover crew having recently made it to the Pole prior to station close, they’ve been engaged in a number of exercises and activities to build camaraderie among the group, who will spend the next six months together in […]

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Ibrahim Safa awarded 2023 GNN Dissertation Prize

The 2023 Global Neutrino Network (GNN) Dissertation Prize is awarded to Ibrahim Safa, a postdoctoral research scientist at Nevis Labs of Columbia University. “The GNN dissertation prize recognizes young postdoctoral candidates who have written an outstanding thesis and contributed significantly to the project. Primary criteria of the selection are the scientific quality, the didactics and […]

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IceCube successfully extracts the lowest energy cosmic neutrinos in the Southern Sky

Since astrophysical neutrinos of high energy were first observed in 2013, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole has continued searching for their sources. So far, evidence of high-energy neutrino emission has been found from the blazar TXS 0506+056, the active galaxy NGC 1068, and most recently, the Milky Way. However, the neutrino streams, […]

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Week 7 at the Pole

It looks like someone just opened up their CSA delivery. Only, this harvest is not from a farm but rather from the South Pole’s own greenhouse. The recent yield was being given in thanks to the SPOT team, who arrived last week with precious fuel and cargo that the South Pole station needs to make […]

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Week 6 at the Pole

Last week at the Pole, IceCube winterover Connor got up close and personal with…something large. That something turns out to be a calibration target for the South Pole Telescope. It’s not located near the telescope but rather about 3 kilometers away, the minimum distance required for the telescope to focus on the source, which gets […]

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Week 5 at the Pole

It was a busy week at the Pole. It started off with a LOT of heavy lifting for IceCube’s winterovers, Kalvin and Connor. In the midst of installing new power supplies for computers in the IceCube Lab, which involves a good deal of unpacking and moving hardware, they had to pick up the pace in […]

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