Science Projects

Two of the bigger science projects going on down here at the Pole are Ice Cube and the 10 Meter South Pole telescope.

Ice Cube is a project that drills down into the ice anywhere from 1,450 and 2,450 meters using hot water from a Rodriguez well. Once the hole is drilled, they drop down multiple doms to detect neutrinos in the ice. It takes about 5600 gallons of fuel to drill one hole with a price of over $10 per gallon. For more information, see this website

http://icecube.wisc.edu

The South Pole Telescope (SPT) is a 10 meter diameter microwave telescope that studies the microwave radiation/light left over from the Big Bang, the event that formed the Universe as we know it. SPT is the largest telescope in the world exclusively dedicated to this research, for which the South Pole is particularly well-suited due to its extremely dry air, high altitude, and desert like conditions (because water absorbs microwaves, which is also how a microwave oven works). It was built in one summer season and started collecting data for the first time last winter. For more information, see this website:

http://pole.uchicago.edu

I’ve been fortunate enough to visit both places. I went to Icecube with a friend of mine who is a driller, and I went to SPT for Ladies Night (a slow dance where I danced with cosmologists and ended up learning how to breakdance…random, eh?).

Click here for some photos