Week 17 at the Pole
Last week was a mostly quiet week at the Pole. The skies are getting darker as the period of twilight comes to an end. As dark as it is, IceCube’s winterovers find it surprising how colorful the sky can become. They and the other station winterovers have been enjoying the skies. Last week they had an intense fire drill, during which IceCube winterover Yuya spent an hour on a stretcher, playing an unconscious, injured victim. Later in the week, they also experienced an actual event—a brownout—and everyone rushed into action. It was short-lived, less than a minute, and although the IceCube detector was affected, the winterovers’ responded quickly and the week’s uptime remained high, over 99%.
