Week 39 at the Pole

Friday, October 11, 2019 - 3:45pm

Sun peaking over snowdrift
Kathrin Mallot, IceCube/NSF

The sunrise is over now at the South Pole, with the sun fully risen.  But if you position yourself just so, near a large snowdrift, it can almost appear as though the sun is rising right there.  It was a quiet week at the Pole, no alarms or interruptions for the IceCube detector.  But it won’t be quiet for long.  The fuel pit has been set up, and the runway has been ready for a while now. Quiet or not, it was also celebration time at the Pole—Oktoberfest, which they observed with a variety of homemade German specialties, decorations, and Bavarian music.

Fuel pit set up on South Pole runway
Kathrin Mallot, IceCube/NSF

Person holding a large pretzel
Kathrin Mallot, IceCube/NSF