Last week at the Pole was restful—finally. No Polympics or other competitive sporting events, no emergency response training, no outreach talks…and a super-quiet detector. The IceCube detector’s uptime was 99.95%, its maximum value given small downtimes required for maintenance and operation. The night skies on the other hand were not so quiet. A major solar flare flooded the sky with some of the brightest auroras of the season so far. But it was short-lived, only lasting ten minutes or so. Those lucky enough to have been outside to witness it pronounced it glorious.
