Week 22 at the Pole

Sky full of auroras and Milky Way, person standing with arms up near a satellite dome.
Martin Wolf, IceCube/NSF

A relatively quiet week it was, last week at the Pole. As far as the IceCube detector goes, quiet is good. There are always regular maintenance tasks and occasional issues that require troubleshooting, but nothing that hinders its performance. The detector has maintained a very high uptime over its many years of operation. And that’s a good thing.

While we wait with bated breath for all the fun of midwinter activities, winterover Martin spent some time looking back through his photos, and found some nice ones from last November, when they toured the pressure ridges at Scott Base, not far from McMurdo Station. These ridges emerge in summer in that area from ice floe collisions, creating beautiful formations of ice blocks pushed up against each other. The wind picked up at the end of their tour, and they found themselves in quite a storm.

View of pressure ridges (ice formations) looking toward Mount Erebus.
Martin Wolf, IceCube/NSF
Seals lying on surface of ice near pressure ridge.
Martin Wolf, IceCube/NSF
View of pressure ridge with skua flying overhead.
Martin Wolf, IceCube/NSF
Bright sun in sky, with four people in parkas walking and huddled against strong blowing snow.
Martin Wolf, IceCube/NSF