Jeffrey Donenfeld

Tag: Antarctica-summer-12-13

  • Running the South Pole Marathon

    Running the South Pole Marathon

    After about a month and a half of training, I finally got my chance to run the 26.2 mile South Pole Marathon. Although the main group of runners ran it on new years day, and on a non-traditional course, I unfortunatly was on the kitchen work schedule that day, and so had to wait a few days to run. I ran on Sunday, January 6, 2013, and ran the traditional 5 laps on the south pole skiway. For some background, see a quick video of my training.

    2013-01-06 South Pole Marathon

    Overall, the run felt great. I got up at 04:00 on Sunday morning, put on my running gear, grabbed a thermos of hot apple cider from the galley, grabbed a radio from Comms, and went out to the Pax Terminal next to the skiway. Since I was running unsupported, I used the heated Pax Terminal as my warming and support hut, and left all of my food and gear in there while I ran.

    Running felt great, and I completed the 26.2 miles in 05:41:50 – certainly not a PR, but a time I’m very happy with considering I was running in -15 degree F air, on snow, in the middle of the highest, windiest, coldest, and driest desert in the world.

    Marathon Course

    If you’re wondering, here’s what I wore to run:

    • Salomon XA Pro 3D Ultra2 GTX Trail Runners
    • Smartwool Expedition Weight Socks
    • Icebreaker 3/4 length 200 Bodyfit long underwear bottoms
    • Marmot Goretex Paclite shell pants
    • Ibex 17.5 T-shirt
    • Arc’Teryx Atom LT Jacket
    • OR Versaliners Gloves
    • Burton Full Gauntlet Goves
    • Icebreaker beanie
    • Peru Alpaca Had
    • Smith Goggles
    • Generic fleece neck gaiter

    Here’s the GPS track of my run:

    Thanks to Blaise for coming out to the skiway at the crack of dawn to take pics of me running!

  • The BLAST-Pol Balloon-Borne Submillimeter-Wave Telescope Launches From McMurdo Station, Antarctica

    The BLAST-Pol Balloon-Borne Submillimeter-Wave Telescope Launches From McMurdo Station, Antarctica

    Although this happened at McMurdo and I didn’t get to see it personally, it’s still cool – a high altitude weather balloon launch in Antarctica.

    BLAST-Pol is a balloon-borne submillimeter-wave telescope designed to study star formation in our galaxy. It was launched on its 2012 long-duration stratospheric balloon flight by the crew of NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility on December 26, 2012 from Willy Field near McMurdo Station, Antarctica.

  • Published on the Antarctic Sun: The 2013 Geographic South Pole Marker Dedication

    Published on the Antarctic Sun: The 2013 Geographic South Pole Marker Dedication

    Every year since we’re on a moving ice sheet, the Geographic South Pole Marker is moved to it’s new correct position at the actual geographic south pole. There’a big ceremony, in which the American Flag is passed around the station staff to its new location, and the new marker is unveiled. My writeup of the whole ceremony was recently published in the NSF’s Antarctic Sun, along with a few photos. Read the article on the Antarctic Sun: Return to tradition – 2013 geographic South Pole marker sports classic style (PDF)

    Screen Shot 2013-01-13 at 6.31.45 AM

    Excerpt…

    As tradition dictates, on New Year’s Day the geographic South Pole marker was moved to its freshly surveyed position, and the new brass-and-copper plaque that tops the marker was revealed.

    The Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station sits on a moving sheet of ice more than two miles thick. The site where the geographic marker, sign and American flag are installed drifts about 30 feet per year due to ice flow. In order to keep the marker in close proximity to the point where all the lines of longitude meet, the site is re-surveyed Jan. 1 each year. [See previous article — A good point: South Pole geographic marker changes with the times.]

    The entire South Pole Station staff gathered outside between the old and new pole locations this year and formed a semicircle. Each person helped pass the American flag from its drifted location to the new location just beside the 90 degrees South marker.

    A few pics of the marker and ceremony:

    2013-01-01 New South Pole Marker
    2013-01-01 New South Pole Marker
    2013 South Pole Marker underside
    2013-01-01 New South Pole Marker
    2013-01-01 New South Pole Marker
    2013-01-01 New South Pole Marker

    Also published at:
    Earthsky: “New South Pole marker gives Pluto and Armstrong a shout out”
    Universe Today: New South Pole Marker Honors Planets, Pluto, and Armstrong

  • South Pole Station’s December Update on NSF’s Antarctic Sun

    South Pole Station’s December Update on NSF’s Antarctic Sun

    While living here at the South Pole, among my other jobs, I’m working as the Station Correspondent for the National Science Foundation’s antarctic news publication, The Antarctic Sun. Every month in addition to my single-topic articles, I write an all-station update, covering significant science and social developments for the month. Here’s my December update, published a few days ago. (PDF)

    Antarctic Sun December 2012 Station News

  • My Room at the South Pole

    My Room at the South Pole

    Life here at the south pole is actually relatively comfortable – and we each get our own rooms to sleep in.

    My room has a window, however I have cardboard taped over it to block out the light – so when I go to sleep at night, my room is completely dark.In our rooms, we have a small closet, dresser, chair, desk, and bed. At my desk there is power, ethernet, and a Cisco phone – I can use the phone to make outgoing calls when we’re connected to the internet, and also to make on-station calls at all times. There’s also a clothes line running the length of my room. Here’s a pic:

    My Room at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station

  • Training for the South Pole Marathon

    Running here at the south pole is hard. And training to run a marathon on the ice is even harder. Here’s a quick clip I shot while training out on the ski loop…

  • Touring The Air Force LC-130 Hercules With The Flight Crew

    Touring The Air Force LC-130 Hercules With The Flight Crew

    Marooned at the South Pole while Condition 1 Weather Shuts Down McMurdo Station Air Traffic, the crew of one of the US Air Force’s LC-130 Hercules Transport Aircraft Gives Me A Tour Video.

    Touring The Air Force LC-130 Hercules

    A few days ago, the LC-130 Hercules transport aircraft that was flying from South Pole back to McMurdo got turned around mid-flight by bad weather at McMurdo, and landed back at pole. They shut the engines down, and have been stuck here for the last few days waiting for the weather to improve. Yesterday, while the plane was shutdown, I got the pilot, navigator, and loadmaster to give me a tour of the whole thing – including paratooper jump lights, ATO rocket pack mounts, skiis, and the cockpit.

  • Is It Really Snowing At The South Pole?

    Is It Really Snowing At The South Pole?

    Last week, amidst some interesting weather, blowing snow, and what looked like (to the untrained observer) real snow falling, I reported that we were actually getting snow at the South Pole. As it turns out, the precipitation we received here was actually “snow grains”, not real snow. To clear up a bit of the confusion, and fill my in on general weather phenomenon here, I asked our Meteorologist Phillip Marzette a few questions.


    Over the last few days here at the south pole, I’ve noticed some snow-like precipitation. I hear it’s exceedingly rare to get actual snow here. Was that snow we got, or something else? How often does it actually snow here? What’s the main form of precipitation?

    As far as precipitation at South Pole, they come in three forms; ice crystals, snow grains and snow. Ice crystals appear about 90% of the time and are the product of water vapor after it encounters very cold and dry air poleward. Snow is made up of six-sided dendrite branch crystals. These are rare at South Pole and occur with warmer temperatures. Snow grains (8-9% occurrence), like snow, occur in warmer temperatures but they are more opaque, graupel-like in structure. Snow grains are what you saw out there, Jeffrey and there hasn’t been any “snow” recorded so far this season.

    South Pole Temperature Graph

    So, if we’re in a desert here and there’s such low amounts of precipitation, why is the ground covered with snow? Why isn’t it just slick ice on the surface?

    The snow on the ground has mainly to do with the continent drifting towards the polar regions over millions of years. During that time, accumulations here have topped out at 2 miles while places further into the continent are at 3 miles. The ANDRILL project here on the continent can tell you more about that than I can. Over time, the snow hasn’t had a chance to melt and refreeze into ice that we are accustomed to, so the ground is still soft to walk on at South Pole.

    ANDRILL (ANtarctic geological DRILLing) is a multinational collaboration comprised of more than 200 scientists, students, and educators from seven nations (Brazil, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States) to recover stratigraphic records from the Antarctic margin using Cape Roberts Project (CRP) technology. The chief objective is to drill back in time to recover a history of paleoenvironmental changes that will guide our understanding of how fast, how large, and how frequent were glacial and interglacial changes in the Antarctica region. Future scenarios of global warming require guidance and constraint from past history that will reveal potential timing frequency and site of future changes.
    ANDRILL (ANtarctic geological DRILLing) is a multinational collaboration comprised of more than 200 scientists, students, and educators from seven nations (Brazil, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States) to recover stratigraphic records from the Antarctic margin using Cape Roberts Project (CRP) technology. The chief objective is to drill back in time to recover a history of paleoenvironmental changes that will guide our understanding of how fast, how large, and how frequent were glacial and interglacial changes in the Antarctica region. Future scenarios of global warming require guidance and constraint from past history that will reveal potential timing frequency and site of future changes.

    In addition to the light precipitation we’ve had lately, there’s also been a thick cloud cover, and it’s also been very warm – maybe around -10F. Do these have anything to do with each other?

    As far as clouds bringing us warmer weather, that’s a two part answer. The first part being that clouds in general do a good job in trapping in longwave radiation, thereby keeping our temperatures up. The second part is a tad more complicated, but I’ll try to explain. At South Pole, the coldest air settles at the surface and the air is warmer above us. This condition is called an inversion. When cold air meets warmer air, conditions become calmer, while when warm air meets cold air, that’s when we get clouds. When we have low pressure air moves upward from the surface, while when we have high pressure air moves downward to the surface. During low pressure at Pole, the colder air at the surface meets the “warmer” air aloft and conditions are pretty good. During high pressure events, the warmer air goes down to the cold air and we get our clouds, precipitation and otherwise bad weather.

    Temp2

    So far during my time here on the ice (Since November 13th), I’ve seen ice crystals drifting in the air, sundogs, thick haze, weird wave-like clouds, and driving winds. What other special weather phenomenon are you looking forward to seeing during the summer season? Anything really special we haven’t seen yet?

    As far as anything else that pops up, we do have some Kelvin-Helmholtz clouds (the clouds that look like ocean waves, due to different layers of stability in the atmosphere) that show up from time to time. Other than that, it just learning more and more about what weather events occur normally at South Pole that I would not see anywhere else around the world.

    This image was obtained just south of Laramie, Wyoming (Home to the University of Wyoming) by Patrick Shea on the morning of August 6, 2007 between 8am and 9am. Courtesy of the eFluids image gallery. https://www.efluids.com/efluids/gallery/gallery_pages/cloud_instability_2.jsp
    This image was obtained just south of Laramie, Wyoming (Home to the University of Wyoming) by Patrick Shea on the morning of August 6, 2007 between 8am and 9am. Courtesy of the eFluids image gallery. https://www.efluids.com/efluids/gallery/gallery_pages/cloud_instability_2.jsp

    Thanks Phil!

  • Happy New Year from the South Pole!

    Happy New Year from the South Pole!

    Happy New Year! To welcome the new year here at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, we had a couple celebrations.

    To start things off, what’s more appropriate on the ice than a Tiki Bar? Sure. Constructed out of a used airdrop parachute, our tiki bar included an ice bar, BBQ grill, sledding hill, and drink warmers. A few pics:

    The tent as seen from the station – that’s a large parachute!
    2012-12-31 New Years
    2012-12-31 New Years

    Retail manager Michael Smith grilling chicken wings in -15 degree F air on a nice and hot grill.
    2012-12-31 New Years

    Air Transportation Specialist Trudy with her frozen drink. Everything freezes solid in a matter of minutes if it’s not drank immediately.
    2012-12-31 New Years

    Me sledding down our hill, with my Betabrand USA Pants.
    2012-12-31 New Years

    Michael Smith
    2012-12-31 New Years

    Rather than a drink cooler, what we use here is more like a drink warmer. An insulated electronics box filled with our drinks, and a bunch of disposable hand warmers. With the hand warmers, the drinks stay just barely above freezing.
    2012-12-31 New Years

    Second, three bands made up of fellow polies played for us in the gym, where we danced into 2013 on NZ time.

    Trudy and Daniel start off the night of entertainment.
    2012-12-31 New Years

    Jon Kaufman shreds
    2012-12-31 New Years

    Rocking out for the new year in the south pole station’s gym – the largest enclosed space on station.
    2012-12-31 New Years

  • 2012 Yearly Wrapup

    2012 Yearly Wrapup

    Every year I try to do a yearly wrap-up, in order to talk about how the year has gone and about what’s coming up next. This year is no different—and so I present to you my 2012 wrap-up, written from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. This year’s post will be relatively concise, given that our satellite connection here is incredibly slow, and it takes forever to look through old media.

    Antarctica

    The overarching theme of this past year has been, of course, Antarctica. This year marks the fourth year that I’ve been applying to jobs on the ice, and I was determined to finally make it work this time around. After having already spent so much time on this endeavor, and on what has turned out to be a major life goal of mine, failure was simply not an option. Thus, most significant long-term plans in 2012 were made with my eventual Antarctic plans in mind.

    Starting in January, I embarked on the NOLS Winter Outdoor Educator backcountry course in Teton Valley, Wyoming. The course was great; it gave me an excellent new instance of winter backcountry living and travel experience, and it served as a fantastic supplement to my resume. Although the ultimate position I secured in Antarctica was not directly related to this training, I still had a great time on the expedition and made a few close friends.

    IMG_1144
    IMG_1598

    Next on the quest for a job in Antarctica was the renewal of my Emergency Medical Technician certification. I had originally gone through EMT training by taking night classes at Cincinnati State Technical College while I was a senior in high school. Unfortunately, though, over time, I’d failed to keep my certification up to date, and it had completely expired by the time I was ready to add it to my resume. I had a limited amount of free time to complete that training over this past summer—and so, with the help of a TaskRabbit, I found the Unitek College two-week accelerated EMT boot camp in Freemont, California. The boot camp was intense, but worth it—we ripped through the entire EMT curriculum very quickly. Combined with my NOLS-WMI WFR training from 2011, I’m now confident that I have a very solid base of EMS training and experience. The clinical ride-alongs for my EMT training took place in Oakland, CA, and gave me exposure to a variety of real-life scenarios—including some gory hospital incidents and gritty street cleanups. EMT training in California was, overall, a positive experience, and I’m very glad to have completed this certification again. Shortly after completing my training in Freemont, I spent a few weeks in San Francisco, where I took my National Registry exam as early as was possible—and passed easily on my first attempt.

    IMG_0814

    A final—though constant—step in my Antarctic application process was networking and communicating. When I first set my mind to securing a job on the ice, I knew absolutely nothing about the continent, let alone any contacts who had worked there or been involved at all. Now, four years later, I’ve built up a fairly extensive list of contacts and resources. And so, in 2012, a vast amount of time has been spent on maintaining contact with my resources and on following up with the fifty-odd job applications I’d put in for jobs on the ice. Antarctica HR staff get a lot of emails and calls from job seekers, so it was quite a struggle to set myself apart from the masses while simultaneously avoiding coming off as overbearing. In my quest to secure a position in Antarctica, the networking and follow-up communications aspect was by far the most time-consuming and draining.

    Finally, in late September, when I had long since exhausted all of my resources and felt as if there was no hope left, I published my long article chronicling my efforts—and it was that low point that ended up saving me. Soon after publishing my Long Journey article, someone at the South Pole got wind of it via a mutual contact on Twitter, and I was saved. My article made its rounds around the station; then, thanks in part to a last-minute job opening, I was offered a job as a cook at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica—where I’m currently sitting writing this post. The only catch to the offer was that I needed to depart in five days’ time. That offer reached me at the beginning of November while I was on a great road trip with my siblings—and by mid-month, I was back in Boulder, fully packed and ready to ship out. Finally, my adventure to Antarctica had begun.

    So that’s my experience in Antarctica, the main focus of 2012. As I’m currently on the ice, you can read all about what I’ve been up to here at https://JeffreyDonenfeld.com/Antarctica

    2012-11-13 McMurdo>Pole - DSC01766-1600-80
    2012-11-18 UT Round With Chuckles - IMG_0780-1600-80

    Fueled

    In mid-2011, I left Morpheus Media so that I could spend more time on personal projects (such as Antarctica) and take a forward step in my career. In February, 2012, after returning from a trip to Paris to hang out with my siblings, I started working at Fueled, a mobile-app agency. Fueled was a small startup, but the company was growing rapidly and needed my skills and experience with digital media, technology, strategy, and sales. I was hired to take on three main positions: Director of Marketing, Producer, and Business Development. I certainly succeeded: in the few months I spent at Fueled, the company grew significantly—expanding its staff and its client roster. In fact, I strategized, developed, and sold the largest marketing contract in the company’s history. Working at Fueled was an excellent experience, and running its marketing team and doing some great biz-dev work was a valuable experience.

    https://flickr.com/photos/jamfan2/7106381129/

    Working at Fueled also helped me continue to hone in on my ultimate career path: the role further solidified my desire to get out of NYC for a bit and move to Antarctica, and I was also able to learn more about content production and sales strategy.

    Travel
    Even by my standards, I traveled a fair amount this past year. To sum it all up, here are a few of the trips that have stood out:

    IMG_1905

    Soho Beach House, Miami

    • San Francisco, CA

    SFO-Coit-Tower-Panorama

    Excursions
    I’ve been fortunate enough this year to have kept in touch with an awesome group of friends in New York who are quite fit and active. As a result, I’ve had the opportunity to go on a number of exciting outings, including:

    2012-10-06 Climbing at the Gunks - DSC08058-Edit

    2012-10-14 Apple Picking Weekend - DSC09382

    Happy New Year! w/ @mattangriffel @elizmallory

    Looking forward to 2013

    2013 will be, no doubt, another good year. Looking forward into the immediate future, I’m already living my dream in Antarctica. I’m also on a good path toward expeditions that have been on my mind for some time—and I’m now refining a longtime career plan. Ideally, in 2013, I’d like to continue on my evolving career path. This will involve combining my 6+ years of experience in digital media and strategy, 10+ years of experience as a freelance journalist, 8+ years as a freelance photographer, and lifetime of experience as an outdoor adventurer, field guide, and medical responder. Yes, I intend to combine all of these fields into a cohesive whole; this will, I hope, be for the best. I’m working several potential strategies to make this happen at the moment, and I’ll leave it at that.

    The blog—what’s going to happen to my decade-old blog in 2013? Plenty! Lots of content. Lots of updates. Lots of technology. For the past three years, I’ve been writing a post every day. I actually decided to start doing a daily post on the same day I decided to go to Antarctica. I told myself that I would chronicle something meaningful and important every day until I made it to the ice. And I did. And I still do. Writing every day has taught me a lot—about myself, about other people, about technology, about writing, about journalism, and about photography. But, most importantly, it has taught me to pay attention. Every day, I have the opportunity to find something special, unique, and meaningful in my life—and to write about it. Yes, every day there is something. And not just for me—for everyone. The trick is to pay enough attention to be able to capture that thing. Writing in this blog every day has truly helped me learn how to capture ephemeral instants of meaning and to appreciate what’s going on around me.

    I’m certainly going to try to continue to write on a daily basis in 2013. I offer no guarantees regarding daily posting, but I’ll certainly be trying to keep the content flowing.

    Here’s to a great 2012—and to looking forward to an epic 2013. Cheers!

    —Jeffrey

  • The 2012 Antarctic South Pole Marathon Course Map

    The 2012 Antarctic South Pole Marathon Course Map

    Although we may be changing it sightly, here’s the current course map for the 2012 South Pole Marathon at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica.

    Marathon Course

  • Destination Alpha

    Destination Alpha is where you want to be. It’s our code name for what’s basically the front door of the station. A few pics of this grand entrance to our frozen outpost at the south pole:

    If you’re flying into Pole for the first time, after getting off the plane, you’ll walk a short distance from the skiway over to the side of the station, and Destination Alpha. Here’s the view, complete with sundog.
    2012-12-02 Destination Alpha

    Steps going up, with views out to the skiway. Destination alpha is 3 stories tall, with the middle level being the entrance. The top level is the deck, and can only be accessed from inside the station.
    2012-12-02 Destination Alpha
    2012-12-02 Destination Alpha
    https://flickr.com/photos/jamfan2/8283228022/in/photostream/lightbox/

    A few views walking into the station. The two double doors on the left are the main entrance doors, which you would have just walked through. Also pictured is the big lounge and coat room.
    2012-12-02 Destination Alpha

    Opposite view, entrance to the music room, gymnasium, and stairs up to the second level.
    2012-12-02 Destination Alpha

    Looking down the 1st floor hallway – display cases on the right housing the south pole markers from years past.
    2012-12-02 Destination Alpha
    2012-12-02 Destination Alpha
    2012-12-02 Destination Alpha
    2012-12-02 Destination Alpha

    And finally on display in the main entrance, a DOM from the Ice Cube Neutrino Telescope.
    2012-12-02 Destination Alpha
    2012-12-02 Destination Alpha
    2012-12-02 Destination Alpha

    Our deck, at the top of Destination Alpha. Quite a nice view! Notice the compass rose at the top of the flagpole.. all north!
    https://flickr.com/photos/jamfan2/8282176895/in/photostream/lightbox/

  • SPoT2 Field Camp’s Holiday Greeting Card

    SPoT2 Field Camp’s Holiday Greeting Card

    SPoT2, Antarctica’s favourite mobile station wishes us Happy Holidays!

    Spot 2

  • South Pole’s Plumbing Shop

    South Pole’s Plumbing Shop

    On the ice at the South Pole, we’re as self sufficient as we possible can be. When something breaks, somebody’s gotta fix it. A few days ago I went with a few friends to check out the south pole’s plumbing supply shop – this place houses everything to fix all levels of plumbing disaster – from a jet fuel line break down to a simple pipefitting drip.

    South Pole International Plumbers-n-Pipefitters

  • Cryo Barn’s Last Liquid Helium Transfer

    Cryo Barn’s Last Liquid Helium Transfer

    The South Pole Cryogenics Laboratory, usually known as Cryo Barn, was originally established to service various telescopes and science experiments with cryogenic cooling liquids such as Liquid Helium and Liquid Nitrogen. However, in recent years, most new experiments which operate at cold temperatures have been of the “closed loop” variety – that is, they don’t vent or leak any of their coolant. Therefore, most of the new experiments don’t need the regular coolant refils that Cryo Barn was built to provide. Last week, I got to watch as the last Liquid Helium dewar was filled from the main tank, and then shipped off to the Bicep2 CMB Telescope.

    Cryogenics Technician Flint Hamblin prepares the main Liquid Helium holding tank for transfer to the smaller transport dewar.
    Fill volume of the dewar is measured by weight, and here Flint is seen checking the dewar weight as it’s suspended from the ceiling.
    Liquid Helium is at about 4 Kelvin, or -452.2 degrees Fahrenheit. During the fill, the valves and piping that handle the liquid helium get extremely cold. In fact, they get cold enough to condense out the gasses from the air, turning the air into liquid. In this picture, the wet drips seen coming off the exhaust nozzle are drips of liquid nitrogen and oxygen condensed out of the surrounding air. Basically liquid air. The small grey plume coming out of the tip of the nozzle is actually a small amount of liquid helium, instantly vaporizing. The small white crust seen at the tip of the nozzle is solid air.
    The dewar is transported from Cryo to MAPO on a sled pulled by a snowmobile. Here’s Flint and Physicist Jon Kaufman on the snowmobile, as I ride on the sled with the dewar.
    The final step of the process, hoisting the dewar up into MAPO, where it’s used to fill the Bicep2 CMB telescope.

    Liquid helium plays a crucial role in the operation and effectiveness of microwave telescopes. Here are five key points about its use:1

    1. Cooling of Instruments: Liquid helium is used to cool the sensitive instruments and detectors of microwave telescopes to extremely low temperatures, often close to absolute zero (approximately -273.15°C or -459.67°F). This is essential because it significantly reduces thermal noise, which can obscure the weak microwave signals from space that the telescopes are trying to detect.
    2. Increased Sensitivity: By reducing thermal noise through cooling, liquid helium enhances the sensitivity of microwave telescopes. This increased sensitivity allows astronomers to detect faint microwave emissions and cosmic microwave background radiation with greater clarity, leading to more accurate measurements and observations.
    3. Maintenance of Superconducting States: Certain components within microwave telescopes, such as superconducting magnets and quantum sensors, require a superconducting state to function optimally. Liquid helium is used to maintain the temperature conditions necessary for these components to achieve and sustain superconductivity, thereby ensuring the high performance of the telescope’s systems.
    4. Long-duration Observations: The use of liquid helium enables microwave telescopes to conduct extended observations without the need for frequent recalibrations due to thermal fluctuations. This stability is crucial for long-term studies of the universe, such as monitoring the cosmic microwave background over time to understand the evolution of the universe.
    5. Enabling Ground-based and Space-based Observations: While liquid helium is a critical resource for ground-based microwave telescopes, it is also vital for space-based telescopes. In the vacuum of space, where radiative cooling is limited, liquid helium is used to cool instruments to the necessary temperatures for observing the universe in microwave frequencies without the interference from Earth’s atmosphere.

    In summary, liquid helium is indispensable for the operation of microwave telescopes, enhancing their performance by cooling sensitive components, reducing noise, maintaining superconductivity, allowing for prolonged observations, and enabling both ground-based and space-based astronomy.

    1. Generated by ChatGPT-4, 2024-03 ↩︎
  • Rothera Research Station’s Holiday Greeting Card

    Rothera Research Station’s Holiday Greeting Card

    The UK wishes us Happy Holidays from Rothera Research Station, Antarctica. (Wikipedia Article)

    Rothera - View of base from the ramp CMJD 21 oct 2012 with words

  • Henryk Arctowski Station’s Holiday Greeting Card

    Henryk Arctowski Station’s Holiday Greeting Card

    Poland wishes us Happy Holidays from Henryk Arctowski Station, Antarctica.

    Henryk Arctowski Polish Antarctic Station Holiday Greeting Card 2012

    And here’s a nice map of their location, courtesy of Department of Antarctic Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences.

    Polish Antarctic Station Map

  • Mawson Station, Antarctica’s Holiday Greeting Card

    Mawson Station, Antarctica’s Holiday Greeting Card

    Australia wishes us Happy Holidays from Mawson Station, Antarctica.
    Mawson Station, Antarctica Holiday Greeting Card

  • Happy Holidays from the South Pole

    Happy Holidays from the South Pole

    Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station Crew Holiday Photo 2012 - Antarctica

    Happy holidays! Last week, as is tradition, the entire Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station crew assembled by the ceremonial pole and took our all-station holiday photo. Going into the holidays has been great so far. We’ve just finished celebrating Chanukah, and have a bunch of other holiday celebrations to come. Here’s our all-hands photo, as well as a quick video clip of us assembling by the pole. Video was taken by Blaise Kuotiong.

    South Pole Holiday Card 2012

    (Also, big shoutout to blog reader and polie father Ron Rotter. Cheers!)

  • Palmer Station, Antarctica’s Holiday Greeting Card

    Palmer Station, Antarctica’s Holiday Greeting Card

    Traditionally, each American station and camp in Antarctica sends around a holiday greeting card every year. Here’s this year’s card from Palmer Station, showing the layout of the station on the Antarctic Penninsula. Someday I hope to make it here!

    Palmer Station Antarctica Holiday Card

  • Scott Base, Antarctica’s Holiday Greeting Card

    Scott Base, Antarctica’s Holiday Greeting Card

    New Zealand wishes us Happy Holidays from Scott Base, Antarctica.

    Scott Base Antarctica Holiday Card 2012

  • It’s Snowing Today At The South Pole!

    It’s Snowing Today At The South Pole!

    Despite the fact that we’re living on an ice cap, and surrounded completely by snow at all times, it actually rarely snows here. Sure, the wind blows the snow around a lot, and we do have snowstorms consisting of snow kicked up by the wind – but we get very very little actual snowfall from the sky.

    Today, it actually snowed. Just a little – but enough to create a stir. Check out the current conditions at my south pole home on our official site, and on Weather Underground.

    2012-12-20 Snow at the South Pole

    (More on precipitation at the south pole from Wikipedia)

  • The Antarctic Race Around The World – Course Rules and Map

    The Antarctic Race Around The World – Course Rules and Map

    Every year, the crew of the south pole station races around the word. And it only takes a few minutes. Virtually any mode of transportation is allowed, however most people run, or snowmobile. Although you could technically walk around the world in a few short steps right at the pole, this year the course is a bit longer – it’s about 1.75 miles, and covers most of the major sights here at the pole.

    Race-Around-the-World-Course-Map-FY13

    A few details on the race, courtesy of South Pole Facilities Engineer Andres Martinez:

    • The Race it will start promptly at 10:00am on Monday morning, December 24th.
    • The pedestrian course is 1.75 miles in length.
    • Pedestrians; running, walking or skiing will begin the Race at the Geographical Pole (see map).
    • All motorized vehicles will be staged at the NGO apron (see map).
    • Runners that want to be timed will start first, all others will follow.
    • All pedestrians are to stay on the left path (inside lane) and all vehicles are to stay on the far right path (outside lane).
    • Vehicle drivers must practice all safety rules (i.e. must wear a helmet if on a snowmobile).
    • Vehicles must go around the BIF and CRYO buildings and not between the Garage and VFM (see map).
    • Vehicles must stay on groomed roads.
    • Runners that want to their time recorded; there is a sign up sheet in the Galley near the Dish Pit.
    • Pedestrians, please use the pedestrian bridge to cross over the fuel line.
    • Pedestrians please do not run, walk or ski over the fuel line.
    • Costumes are optional.
    • All participants will receive a water bottle and can collect them in the Galley after the race, only one per person please.

    Photos from the race will be coming soon…

  • The South Pole Communications Office

    The South Pole Communications Office

    Communication is key – and at the south pole, communication is a vital link for the 160 or so of us who live here. In support of linking together all of the different groups of people, locations, and jobs, we have a central comms office, which handles everything.

    The comms situation here is complex, and to help sort things out, Comms operator Kelly Schermerhorn has graciously answered a few questions. Here’s everything you every wanted to know about South Pole Comms:

    Anything you’d like to say or note about the comms office, or communication situation here on station?

    At South Pole, we are uncontrolled air space. Meaning, since we have no Air Traffic Controllers on staff, anyone can land here. Anyone. We do not give clearances or direction to aircraft (Hercules LC-130s, Twin Otters or Baslers); we simply pass them information such as weather and cargo. We also relay information to aircraft flying on continent (even commercial Qantas flights that fly over Antarctica!) if comms are poor with MacCenter ATC. We monitor the MacOps and MacCenter frequencies 24/7 in case we need to pass information ourselves or for them. Talking with aircraft is a large part of our job, but otherwise as Communications Coordinators our job is to respond to fire alarms or indications of trouble with the fire system that come into the Keltron machine, maintain and update phone lists & any relevant information to our daily operations in Comms (tourist info., field camp & other station emails/phone numbers), accept 911 calls & respond appropriately (call the doctor, spin up the ERT teams), document and keep track of work and recreation check outs to restricted and / or cold areas, make available any communications means necessary for on station Kenn Borek Air crew members to retrieve weather and update McM on their flight movements, teach people how to use handheld LMR radios, make certificates for distinguished visitors and people who work the entire season at Pole, etc., etc. Essentially, we are the information hub for the station and the aircraft that fly to / from South Pole.

    How many different “groups” of people are tied together by comms? IE, contractors, grantees, flight ops, MCM?

    Grantees and contracted employees alike use LMR radios to talk with each other and with Comms. There are not enough radios for every single employee during the summer to “own” a radio for the season, but we also have recreation radios to loan out. Their radio contact can be for work purposes, recreational purposes or ERT team purposes. The Flight Ops channel keeps the fuelies, ARFF crew (fire fighters), cargo and Comms on one channel to pass information about flights. This is the channel in use during flight operations to pass everything from the amount of fuel a Herc offloaded to all outbound passengers being accounted for. That is the LMR side of things.

    We have three HF antenna directionals to speak with 1 – MacOps, field camps, aircraft, Happy Camper school; 2 – MacCenter & aircraft; 3 – Union Glacier, Rothera, and Palmer Station all in West Antarctica. We monitor the first two 24/7 while we would only monitor West Antarctica frequencies if we were expecting a call.

    We use VHF which can only be heard within a short radius of the station to talk with Hercs while they are on the ground (as using HF could cause a spark if they use it), to talk with the Traverse when they are on station and to talk with tourists (skiers) when they are at the campground.

    Iridium and phone lines are in use every day – for everyone and anyone on station, in McM, in Denver, at Palmer, or anywhere else in the world really. We have the capability to call anywhere in the world we need to, with or without satellite coverage.

    How many different radio technologies do you regularly use? (IE LMR, VHF, SAT?)

    HF, VHF, Iridium, LMR – daily.

    What’s the longest distance regular call that you make? Have you ever talked via HAM? Have you ever talked to the ISS or any other space platforms?

    Hmmm… I guess the furthest away we call or help others call regularly would be Denver, CO. I’m sure that privately, folks call further away to talk with their families or friends.

    I am not a licensed HAM operator, so I have never used that equipment.

    I have not talked with ISS or other space platforms, but Dr. Sean Roden has talked about setting something up. He got to do this when he worked for NASA, and he thought it would be a great morale boost for folks on station to do the same.

    What kind of backup communications do you have access to?

    We have a backup Comms room in B1 Pod. That is the emergency pod in case a fire or other disaster happened on station – it is set up to be closed off and capable of keeping the population housed and warm until help could arrive. (This is where the backup kitchen, emergency power plant & backup laundry are all located.)
    In backup Comms, we have HAM radio, HF & VHF capabilities, an Iridium handset phone, a computer, a regular telephone. We also have portable VHF radios to use which could be carried into the backup Comms.