I'm writing just after spring has begun (sprung) in the Southern Hemisphere. That is, I am updating this in a cooling north while the south polar region warms. At the South Pole, things are "thawing out" in a manner of speaking, since the Sun finally rose to completely clear the horizon in the week of the equinox. Soon the Cam at the South Pole will be re-activated, and the spring season will be underway with new support and science arrivals! Stay tuned. The Sun's Up!

Image: National Science Foundation

Photograph by: Ethan Dicks
National Science Foundation
Date Taken: January 27, 2006

Since this aerial view of Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, was taken there has been substantial progress in the construction of the new station. The brown building is the Elevated Station under construction. New gray siding can be seen on the lower right side.

The new station has replaced the former decommissioned station, located under the geodesic dome, viewed in the lower left. The flags of the 12 original Antarctic Treaty signatory nations near the "ceremonial pole" can be seen as a semi-circle at the right side of the photo.

The "real" pole has moved from this nice little photo-op location. I say that, but it is the 10,000 ft thick layer of ice which has moved. The Earth's pole wanders around a little, but the biggest motion at the pole is the glacially slow creep of the very old ice. Good pictures of visitors and visitor scientists can be taken from this ceremonial pole, with the new pole-station building in the background along with your nation's flag if your nation was a signatory.

The station is named for the two explorers who were first to visit the "bottom" of the Earth. Amundsen lived. Scott's expedition did not return, though. Their dessicated bodies and effects and writings are legend. What would you have done?

If you are a writer, or scholar interested in writing about, visiting, or working under the NSF program check these sites out:

http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf06554

http://www.nsf.gov/od/opp/aawr.jsp

This is a place by all Earthly comparisons -- of absolute inhospitable barreness.

Only Space, the surface of the Moon, the surface of Mars, or any of the other Planets -- is more inhospitable. How do you tell what is hospitable or not?

Well, here at the pole you can still breathe the air! Here you can also walk around with clothing.

And if you want to, you can hike in! Like Scott and Amundsen did. And like them, you would likely get to hike out.

Tourists are not encouraged! This is a scientific outpost. Continual human presence here depends on aircraft, though a land route is being pioneered to bring supplies.

Realize EVERYBODY is a visitor here, and if you hike in for a visit, you may want to bring your own "flag." The support operated "store" probably won't be able to sell you food or even many souvenirs. If you do hike in, be sure to bring enough food to feed yourself for your hike back. There are no policemen here; it is one of the few places on Earth you can't find or call for a cop. Mostly the people here are scientists or support personnel. Everyone is psychologically screened, possibly as well as those selected for future space missions for conditions of long term isolation, like on the Moon, or going both directions from Mars will be.

===================

The Camera at the pole - - Well, near it!

http://www.usap.gov/videoClipsAndMaps/spWebCam.cfm

I do not know if the camera "pans." (Right now it doesn't.) Or can be panned, but it is located at the atmospheric observatory. See the map below where the camera location is shown. (The wind blows (often) almost continually at the pole, when you look at the camera site, notice the temperature and windchill temperature.)

I have since found since posting this initially, that they shut the Cam down through the night, durn! So it will be October November, 2007 when it is restored and we can see the living quarters there again. I really looked forward to the dark! Shucks. I wanted to see the CAMERA capture the Aurora Australis! I wanted to see a South Pole Moon rise. All the good stuff!

(I noted they got the cam back on -- but I am adding this older set of images on 11-5-2007, which shows the moonlit South Pole for about a night-and-a-fifth. Er. . . maybe 30 hours?)

This is not a Moon rise, but it is in the cold part of the night, and you can watch the Moon traverse completely around the pole (As The World Turns, or whirls)and this was taken June 2, 2004. It is a big file! But if you can, take the time to download and watch it and you will see bright aurora in a bright moonlit sky. (I saw Sirius and most of the bright stars in Canis Major while the view of the sky whirled. The Moon is incredibly over exposed and looks huge but keep in mind that it is about -13 magnitude somewhat over powering the darkness. (Well, a magnitude of -12.7 with an average albedo (reflectivity) of about 11%)And the moon was full for the movie below! And the Aurora Australis is bright enough to see well even though it is moonlit sky and ice reflected light making things as night-bright as any where. Yet it would have been a cold walk in the moonlight!

The Moon illuminates the sky and the ice and snow, and that moon-reflected sunlight is itself re-reflected off the ice and helps illuminate the almost dustless, essentially waterless, night sky at the South Pole. If the Moon weren't so bright I'd bet you could locate the belt stars of Orion, with the one virtually on the celestial equator (Delta Orionis, Mintaka) skimming the polar horizon. When the moon is down, a lot more stars would be visible. Probably see here as bright a moonlit sky as it is possible to see.

http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/obop/spo/2004_06_02_lunar_passes_large_006.mpg

I wanted to see a SUNSET at the South Pole. (This was just before they shut the cam down.) But maybe they "fried" a camera and froze another one in the time since 2004. Even that tiny web cam can be damaged. Hope they eventually use a piezo electric filter over the lens to ramp the intensity down at some point. I wanted to see the polar night! And I think many others would too. Alas!

As I write this note here there are only a few days left of sunlight at the pole--the Sun is above the horizon just a small amount, but it is a bright light traveling all the way around you in the course of a day as you watch. Sundown (or Sunset)(from where the Sun's 'bottom' touches the horizon until the 'top' of the Sun vanishes beneath the horizon) lasts a long time, compared to other places on Earth. There is a slight angle to the path the Sun traverses and the "path " the observer sees the Sun upon as the Sun sets. That is, the shape of the 'analemma' but that is not going to very significantly change the time it takes for the Sun to "settle" on, then "sink" below the snowy icy flat horizon at the pole. The Earth revolves around the Sun in a year, and we measure you to be one year older in time.

This means it "appears" the Sun moves one day's worth of angle in the sky against the stars. Daily, at the pole, in the spring the Sun kind of fine-thread-corkscrews its way up to the solstice, then corkscrews its way down to the horizon.

You get the picture.

We know that amount from the Babylonians as 1 degree. Now, since we know the year is a bit longer than 360 days (and so did the Babylonians) we know the amount of angle the Sun traverses is about 360/365 of a degree. Heck, call it a degree! Since the angular diameter of the Sun against the sky is about half a degree, it takes about half a day x 1/sin(23.5 degrees) to set!

Okay rising takes a long time too, but setting --

sine of 23.5 = 0.3987490

1/sin(23.5) = 2.5078

The Sun's motion carries it forward along the ecliptic less than 1 degree (360/365) a day on average (0.9863 of a degree) but the Earth's orbit is elliptical, and it moves at different velocities in different parts of its orbit. (We could look this up a JPL.)

But we will use a degree for this rough back of envelope figuring -- and realize that the Sun's half-degree angular diameter is traversed along the Sun's path on the ecliptic in half a day -- or 12 hours.

So using the 1/sin of the axial tilt of the Earth WRT the Earth's orbital path around the sun gives a factor of the traverse of the slope of 2.5078 as above.

12hours (half a day, half a degree) x 2.5078 = 30.1 hours.

Anyway refraction changes that a bit...

-

Yes, in theory it will take many hours. Now I won't get into atmospheric refraction and how long you can see the sun after it mathematically sets on a vacuum world, because it will really affect the approximately 30.5 hour long sunset. But if the humidity was much higher than 0% and a wet burst of air came through we might quibble by many hours, in fact, days, seeing the Sun even though we know it is and has been down. . .

The camera image should be getting darker then, but I'll keep looking-ing and watching-ing the temp too! I guess we could ask if they could electrically heat the camera electronics or take advantage of the cool for sensitivity. . .? I might. Or you might. But . . .

(Hopefully, we will be able to see when the calm air gets down to 100 below F. The chill and the actual ought to be really close then.)

During the Austral Summer, you can look at the conditions at the South Pole station virtually live on this webcam, depending on where the satellite is that carries the feed images. While live, you can get a refresh on the weather. It is a 'cool' place! Check it out.

JOBS in ANTARCTICA!
If you think you have the Right Stuff! here is where to find out if you might make it in a place like this!

IMAGINE YOURSELF! In this setting! Doing science or support!

http://www.usap.gov/jobsAndOpportunities/

This is the real stuff, fans! Few people make the grade!
Are you One that can? Check it out!

Summer was wrapping-up at the South Pole when I wrote this posting, and NOW as I write this Spring is upon the Pole!

A great deal of science is being done at the Earth's south pole.

Not all is science; there is art:

http://www.stellaraxis.com/about.html

But the science predominates:

This is the NSF's written description of the station and the program!
Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station is one of three year-around stations operated by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The other two United States Antarctic Program stations are McMurdo Station on the Ross Sea and Palmer Station on Anvers Island in the Antarctic Peninsula region. South Pole Station sits at the Earth's axis, atop a constantly shifting continental ice sheet nearly two miles thick.

The South Pole is a unique, valuable research site that supports projects ranging from cosmic observations (at an External Non-U.S. Government operated Site) to seismic and atmospheric studies. The extremely dry, cold air is perfectly suited for observing cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation - the faint light signature left by the Big Bang that brought the universe into being nearly 14 billion years ago. The pattern of these ancient photons reveals the contents and structure of the infant cosmos, and intimate how the structure we see now came into existence and evolved.

The exceptionally clear ice on which the station rests is also home to IceCube (External Non-U.S. Government Site) - a one-cubic-kilometer international high-energy neutrino telescope being built in the glacial ice below the station to detect ghostly subatomic particles created by exotic deep-space events such as exploding stars.

Currently, about 260 scientists, support staff, and construction personnel are living and working at the South Pole Station, where the temperature averages -24.8°C / -12.6°F during the summer. This season operations began at the new Ice Cube Lab. The 10-meter-wide mirror of the South Pole Telescope is now in place, and its 218 sections positioned and calibrated to within a fraction of a millimeter. At the culmination of this austral summer, 290 flight missions will have transported almost 10 million pounds of cargo to the Pole to sustain the summer work and population, and in preparation for the cold, dark winter that lies ahead.

A lot of preparation goes into the winter-over stay at the pole. Part of this is a test of your ability to get along and work with other people. The psychological profile constructed of you before the trip is an important part of the selection of people to stay through the night, and a important part of why you are being allowed to stay. It is during the night stay that the Three Hundred Club initiates are turned into members.

Technically it is the Three Hundred (Degree) Club -- one of the most exclusive clubs on the planet.

At least in the old days at the pole, over the long night. The initiates prepared themselves in the 200 degree heat of a wet Sauna, then naked, accomplished a traverse route "outside" when it was -100 degrees F. or colder. Some times the route took the initiates around the ceremonial Pole, and in the early days the route was around the geographic pole. The Ice keeps sliding, so it might be farther away now. Realize it is over 10,000 feet above sea level. Seriously, at -100 you can take a glass of water out of doors, and empty the glass by throwing it's contents high into the air -- and you have ice hitting the ground when it comes down. It is cold.

It is possible the tradition has been lost. . .to some form of political correctness. . .But I'll have to check around . . . Okay,I'm back. It may still be alive! Imagine waling out of the building, down the stairs? Here are two sites and you can judge for yourself. Don't know if they have a sauna any more with the 'new' design But here you go.

http://astro.uchicago.edu/home/web/cbero/images/300club/300club.html

http://www.harvardmag.com/nd99/alumni.html

Your were allowed shoes, otherwise it is a naked trip. In recent years as you will read, mouth-lung protection was enforced so the initiates would not freeze their lungs. One comment was that people went to the geographic pole and made it back Alive!

The initiates are then toasted at a party! (Not roasted.)