The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will detect gamma rays with unprecedented precision. To do this, physicists have designed not only new telescope optics and cameras but also the required front-end electronics, including a new multichannel digitizer, dubbed TARGET.

Building a cubic-kilometer telescope at the South Pole seemed a chimera even for some of those involved in the project. The goal was simple in words but seemingly impossible in practice: 86 boreholes, each 60 cm in diameter and 2,500 m deep, had to be drilled and instrumented in seven austral summer seasons.

The second Fermi-VERITAS-HAWC workshop begins today in Madison, Wisconsin, at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Union South. The two-day workshop will engage physicists from around North America, encouraging discussion among the three different collaborations.

From the most remote location on Earth, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory peers into deep space. The telescope uses thousands of light sensors built into a cubic kilometer of South Pole ice to reconstruct images of cosmic high-energy neutrinos. IceCube data must be corrected for tiny amounts of contamination, microscopic dust trapped within the ice of the telescope itself. These impurities originated here on Earth, as mineral dust lofted from continental landmasses and ash from ancient volcanic eruptions. First considered a nuisance, the dust in IceCube has become a subject for novel research, telling us vital stories about Earth’s past climate changes.