Week 22 at the Pole

Wintry scene of two frosted and snow-covered IceCube drill towers with some faint auroras in the background.
Marc Jacquart, IceCube/NSF

While most of us up north are enjoying longer and brighter days as summertime gears up, the South Pole remains settled in winter. The image above of frosted and snowed-in IceCube drill towers is a wintry scene indeed. Though, to be fair, the drill towers were rather snow covered in summer as well. (Here’s an older article about IceCube drilling, which has a few images of the drill towers during construction.) Below is IceCube winterover Marc launching a weather balloon in front of the moon last week—one of many images we now have of Marc launching balloons since he learned to do so in March. The moon behind that balloon was quite bright, as the bottom photo attests.

Large weather balloon being held overhead and blocking a bright moon just before launching.
Marc Jacquart, IceCube/NSF
A low but very bright moon in a dark, somewhat bluish South Pole sky.
Hrvoje Dujmovic, IceCube/NSF