Now that the sun has set, indoor leisure activities have taken hold. It turns out the station gym is just big enough for last week’s new sport, wiffle ball.
It finally happened—the lowering sun disappeared below the horizon at the South Pole, leaving everything in dusk.
So, is it a watercolor or a photograph? Well, it is a photograph, but the hazy bands of color in the sky make it definitely reminiscent of a watercolor.
With temperatures around –50 °C (–58 °F) and winds at 15 knots (over 17 mph), there’s no getting around the frosty face look when you’re out walking around at the South Pole.
After the South Pole station closes for the winter, the remaining winter crew has a few short weeks to take care of any outdoor business before the sun sets and leaves them in darkness for months.
A few aircraft stopped at the South Pole last week for refueling. The plane here is a Basler BT-67, flying for the Australian Antarctic Program.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basler_BT-67
So that’s it—the station has officially closed, leaving 42 individuals at the Pole to take care of business during the winter months.
Since the sun will soon be gone for quite a long stretch, you might as well try to get as much of it while you can. Last week, IceCube winterover Yuya did just that with his camera, capturing a nice time-lapse of the sun around midnight that made a little “smile” in the sky.
The last of IceCube’s summer crew have departed from the South Pole, leaving IceCube winterovers John and Yuya on their own. They are well trained and ready for their adventure.
Last week the IceCube team completed their planned upgrades for the radio and scintillator arrays. Here we see an antenna that got deployed on the ice.