Ice Stories dispatches from polar scientists

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Kathryn Schaffer dreamed of becoming an artist but fell in love with physics in graduate school. She is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago's Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics and pursues questions about the origin and history of the universe on the South Pole Telescope team. She arrived at the South Pole in November 2007 and is blogging about her work on the telescope until she leaves in February.

All Posts By Kathryn Schaffer

Climactic Success

By Kathryn Schaffer • February 7th, 2008
Everyone here is breathing a huge sigh of relief. Last night was the first night that our new set of detectors were cold enough to be operated. Unlike the last few test runs, for this run we had mounted the receiver up in the telescope…
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The Clock is Ticking

By Kathryn Schaffer • February 5th, 2008
I looked up at the weather screen today and saw that the temperature had dropped to -38 F (which is actually almost exactly equal to -38 degrees C). The windchill today is about -60F. The dropping temperatures signal that the end of the season is…
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Order & Progress

By Kathryn Schaffer • February 3rd, 2008
A few weeks ago, I posted pictures from a walking tour of the edges of the station. (To read that post, please click here.) Behind the station, construction materials, old scientific equipment, and curious miscellany have been collected over the years in rows out on…
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SPT TV

By Kathryn Schaffer • January 19th, 2008
Last week, I had the opportunity to drive the telescope around a lot. We're not actively observing, but we are making many upgrades to the software that controls the telescope, and trying to debug little things that didn't work as smoothly as we liked last…
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A Monumental Effort

By Kathryn Schaffer • January 12th, 2008
Today, what I should be writing about is the formal dedication ceremony for the new station. This morning, the flag was taken down once and for all from the top of the old dome, the previous South Pole Station, and transferred to a shiny new…
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Our New Sunroof

By Kathryn Schaffer • January 5th, 2008
It's been a busy couple of weeks out at the telescope. SPT postdoc Brad Benson and graduate students Martin Lueker and Joaquin Vieira installed a new set of detectors into the SPT "receiver," which is essentially the camera for the telescope. A full array of…
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Like No Other: The South Pole Christmas Tree

By Kathryn Schaffer • December 25th, 2007
My new favorite thing in the whole universe is the Christmas tree at the South Pole: The second I saw it... ...I fell in love with it. As it's been explained to me, the tree started a few years back when the night shift iron…
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What Passes for Weather

By Kathryn Schaffer • December 24th, 2007
We're guaranteed to have a white Christmas (of sorts) here at the South Pole. But it won't snow. It is normally too cold here for any form of precipitation. The snow on the ground here is different from the December snows back home. It squeaks…
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My Wild Ride

By Kathryn Schaffer • December 15th, 2007
For the last month, one of the major projects on the telescope has been measuring the surface of the 10-meter reflector and adjusting it carefully to create a very accurate surface. This entire project has largely been the job of Chicago postdoc Jeff McMahon, who…
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