After a long, cold winter at the South Pole, it might be hard to decide which is more exciting: the first plane of the season or its contents. Apparently, people get pretty excited at the sight of a bowl of tangerines after going without any fresh fruit for eight or nine months.
Now that you can see what you’re doing outside, it’s time for outdoor activities. Unfortunately, it’s still cold (very cold), and there’s no guarantee that the sun will be out. In fact, here’s IceCube winterover James braving what appears to be rather poor conditions to take some height measurements for calibrating a new IceTop sensor.
The sun sure does make things shiny. The face of the station appears dark and flat, but the “beer can,” the large cylindrical tower on the end that connects the aboveground station to belowground corridors, is glowing in the face of the newly risen sun. So is that interesting snowdrift in the foreground.
Just because the sun is now up, doesn’t mean you can see everything clearly. Check out the poor visibility in this image of a flag line just outside the station, disappearing into whiteness. The 40-knot storm made outdoor work impossible and therefore restricted.
Last week we saw that someone had pulled up a chair to watch the sunrise, this week there are two. And these two people are actually watching the sun—it has been climbing higher and higher all week and is now officially up.
Their time at the Pole may be coming to an end, but apparently their beards are not! IceCube winterovers Martin and James are sporting some fine beards while they happily tackle their work in the dish pit.
Just because it’s light enough to take pictures outdoors, doesn’t mean the sun is up. Not yet—or not officially—anyway. The one and only sunrise each year at the South Pole is a slow process.
Now you see him, now you don’t! Winterover Martin had some fun taking photos at the ceremonial pole last week. Although it was still quite cold outside, the light was sufficient for a much faster a selfie.
With a near perfect uptime and very few detector issues, winterovers enjoyed a quiet week.
Winterovers have been waiting for the sun for many months and the growing anticipation was heightened this week when the temperature reached a frigid -104◦F.