The last of IceCube’s summer crew have departed from the South Pole, leaving IceCube winterovers John and Yuya on their own. They are well trained and ready for their adventure.
Some weeks at the Pole are quiet, and some—like last week—are busy. The IceCube detector had a number of hiccups that required the winterovers’ attention. On top of taking care of IceCube, there were plenty of other things to attend to as far as getting the station ready for the summer crews.
Sometimes the moon is so bright at the Pole that it lights up the dark winter skies. The moon was setting last week, and as it left there was a slow transition to the first visible signs of sunlight along the horizon.
A bright swath of auroras extending low across the sky with a clear view of the Milky Way above—what more could one want (except perhaps to see it in person)? Well, those who winterover at the South Pole station count themselves among the lucky ones.
IceCube was quiet and well behaved last week, but the week was full of all sorts of other activity now that the summer season is officially underway. Here we see IceCube winterover Raffaela getting ready to help park the first passenger aircraft of the season.
The year’s end doesn’t mean an end to the work going on at the Pole. Last week, continued detector upgrades and some inventory tasks were on the work roster. There was also considerable progress made on a new IceTop snow-depth sensor project, documented in this image.
