Week 40 at the Pole

Shadow view of person standing and blocking sun behind them, holding a large weather balloon overhead.
Marc Jacquart, IceCube/NSF

Last week was another relatively quiet week at the South Pole. IceCube’s winterovers responded to a couple of pages for troubleshooting issues, did the monthly IceTop DOM calibration run, and finished up some tests and preparations for a workstation OS update scheduled for next week. Given a well-behaved detector, the winterovers spent some time outdoors. They launched weather balloons and took a break to enjoy eating (trying to eat?) alfresco.

Weather balloon shown in its ascent against cloudy sky but with low bright sun showing through.
Marc Jacquart, IceCube/NSF
Close-up of frozen food, chopsticks suspended in clump of noodles pulled up from bowl and coffee pot suspended by frozen stream of coffee poured into cup.
Marc Jacquart, IceCube/NSF