Last week it was time to board up all the windows of the South Pole station. This is done every year to prevent interior light from interfering with light-sensitive experiments that run in the darkness of winter. Outdoors, lighting is kept to a minimum and to a red spectrum to reduce the interference. There’s still just a bit of sunlight lingering, as seen in the image at top—what’s not so easily discernible in the image are the stars, but the winterovers report having seen them for the first time in months. Station personnel were kept busy with emergency response practice and recreational activities, including continued efforts at mastering the unicycle.
