Week 2 at the Pole

The IceCube Lab in summer under clear blue sky, with three blue power generators lined up on the ice beside it.
Connor Duffy, IceCube/NSF

A bright sun and clear skies were just the ticket for capturing this image of the IceCube Lab (ICL) at the South Pole last week. The photo was actually taken at 3:00 am! Athough the sun’s out all the time now, that early hour happened to be ideal for outdoor lighting conditions. This summer is the first of three consecutive field seasons for the IceCube Upgrade project, and one of the work items has been refurbishing and testing power generators. In the image above, three of the generators to be used by the Upgrade team in the next two field seasons are lined up at the ready to the left of the ICL. Extracurricular activities last week included soccer, which has become a station favorite lately, and a bubblewrap disco party, coordinated in part as an efficient way to pop all the extraneous bubblewrap prior to shipping it out as waste.

Action shot in gym, with out-of-focus close-up from behind of soccer ball about to be kicked, focus on players down field about to react.
Kevin Zagorski, SPT/NSF