Penguins, Seals, Ice, and....Space?

-
Today for my Antarctica blog post, I thought I'd post a bit about the different kinds of scientific research that is done at McMurdo, South Pole, and beyond.

Of course I'm going to Antarctica for a fun adventure, to make some money, and meet some cool new people. But the entire reason anyone is down in Antarctica is because of the important research that is going on down there. What kind of research?

Scientists are studying icebergs and land ice in Antarctica to understand the past of our planet and the effects of Antarctica on the rest of the globe, but also the effects of climate change on Antarctica. If all the ice in Antarctica were to melt, it would rise the sea level by 200 feet!


Scientists are also studying the animal life to expand our understanding of the world and how the special animals in the Antarctic circle thrive in the most extreme conditions on the planet - the penguins, other birds, seals, whales, and other sea life - yes, there is life in the icy seas surrounding Antarctica. (There are no polar bears in Antarctica - they live in the Arctic Circle in northern Alaska, Siberia, and Canada!)

PC: Liam Quinn

Scientists, surprisingly, are also studying outer space from Antarctica. The continent is a great place to study meteors, and the air is so clear, space can be observed very well from the South Pole at a fraction of the cost as space telescopes. In fact, I was just made aware of a very cool breakthrough related to this field of science - a breakthrough in particle physics that was made at the South Pole's Ice Cube Lab, that detects neutrinos. A longer article about this can be found here. Recently, a neutrino, or tiny subatomic particle, was discovered in the Antarctic ice, and scientists for the first time were able to trace the neutrino back to its source in a black hole a very long ways away. It was thrown our way via a energetic jet of radiation pointed at the earth called a "blazar." This tells us more about how black holes work and could even result in us rethinking the laws of physics. This is some of the most cutting-edge and exciting research going on, and I'm so honored to be a tiny part of helping make it happen!

PC: Amble/Wikipedia 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Antarctica

-
Image
I'm going to Antarctica this year.  People ask me, "Why do you want to go?" I say, "Why not go?" I currently live in the Pacific Northwest, in a city with an elevation of 50 feet, an average yearly precipitation of 36 inches, and average winter temperature of 54 degrees Farenheit. I'll be traveling to McMurdo Station, Antarctica, on the Ross Ice Shelf, elevation 33 feet, average yearly precipitation of 8 inches, and it will average a whopping 27 degrees Farenheit in the warmest month, January. Not too different from those nice brisk January days in good old PNW! Surprised? Antarctica is full of surprises! Read on for more surprising facts! It's the highest continent in the world. The South pole is at over 9,000 feet (close to the altitude of Mt. Thielsen). The highest point in the continent is Mt. Vinson at 16,000 feet (2,000 ft taller than Rainier!). It's the driest continent in the world. It is a super-arid desert, a category
Read more

Holding Pattern in Christchurch

-
Image
Greetings from Christchurch! I am writing from a very nice business hotel in downtown Christchurch. I am a sucker for hotels, as I rarely get to stay in them, and all the hotels I stayed at as a kid were those sketchy motel 6- types. So a nice hotel with comfy beds and room service is the way I pretend to be rich. Why am I not in Antarctica? I underwent training and tried on all my cold weather clothes that the program issued me, and was supposed to fly out today. However I'm sipping tea in a hotel and procrastinating packing my suitcases so I can be moved later today to a new hotel. What's going on? The answer is a Condition 1 storm on the continent. Flights have been cancelled and we are getting backed up. Once the storm is cleared and the runway is re-cleared of snow, flights will begin again, but that means I have to wait to fly until the delayed folks ahead of me have been safely delivered to Antarctica. I might be able to leave tomorrow or I might end up in New Zea
Read more

Hello from the Ice!

-
I'm writing this from the computer lab at McMurdo Station, Antarctica!  I wish this post had some pictures to prove it, but I'm working on that - hopefully pictures to come! In my last post, I talked about being delayed because of storms-and those storms ended up resulting in me being delayed about 2 1/2 weeks! It was not a historic delay, but the longest delay for the program in decades, according to the news articles I read. It was great to get to explore Christchurch but I was ready to start my job and get down to the ice. I rode a C-17 down to the ice, operated by the U.S. Air Force. This was a new experience for me, and a new type of aircraft - after all the small planes in Alaska and the various passenger jets, it was a completely different experience to be in a large plane with no windows. It was a remarkably smooth flight down to the ice and the crew did a great job handling us. I can't really describe the moment I stepped out of the plane. The white
Read more