The delay has caused to me think about my time in Antarctica and how much things have changed in the 5 weeks I’ve been here. The weather, which was brutally cold when we first arrived has moderated substantially. During the first couple of weeks of our time in Antarctica we needed to bundle up and cover all exposed bits of skin to face temperatures in the -40s F and wind chills as cold as -90 F.

Waiting on the sea ice to drive from McMurdo to Pegasus. This photo was taken on September 2nd when the temperature was near -30 F with strong winds creating bitter wind chill temperatures and blowing snow. On the next day the temperature dropped to -49 F, which set the all-time record low temperature for McMurdo in September.

Now our high temperatures are around 0 F and it is warm enough that for short walks around the base we can go outside in light fleece jackets without wearing a hat or gloves. It is amazing how quickly the human body adjusts to this harsh environment, since before we arrived in Antarctica I’m certain we all would have thought that a temperature near 0 F was bitterly cold and required bundling up in many layers of clothes.

When we arrived in late August the sun was up for just over 5 hours per day, and was barely peeking above the horizon, with pitch black nights. Today, the sun was up for nearly 15 hours, with the night sky not getting completely dark as the sun skims just below the southern horizon at midnight.

McMurdo at night.

One thing I had been hoping to see on this trip was the Southern Lights. On the night of our first successful Aerosonde flight to Terra Nova Bay I was fortunate enough to step out of the lab for a little while to get some fresh air and noticed the Southern Lights shimmering overhead.

Southern Lights over Black Island and Mt. Discovery. A faint glow from the sun is seen over the southern horizon in this picture taken near midnight.

On my previous trips to Antarctica I’ve never experienced sunrise or sunset, as it had been light 24 hours per day for months on end. I’ve enjoyed watching the sunrise and sunset every day while here for this WinFly trip.

Sunrise over Ross Island.

The cold Antarctic atmosphere is capable of creating some stunning, and sometimes disorienting, optical phenomena. One interesting optical effect we’ve seen quite a bit of is called a fata morgana. A fata morgana only occurs when there is a sharp increase in temperature with height through a thin layer of the atmosphere. When temperature increases with height in the atmosphere it is referred to as an inversion, since this is normally the opposite of what normally occurs in the lower part of the atmosphere. When a very strong inversion exists light reflected from objects on the horizon gets bent, causing objects near the ground to appear to be elevated. In the case of small rocks near the ground, these rocks appear to be large cliffs.

Fata morgana from Pegasus runway. In this photo you can notice distortion near the horizon, at the base of the mountains and also about halfway up the side of the mountains. These areas that appear to be cliffs are actually optical illusions called fata morgana.

The distortion of light as it passes through the atmosphere is not confined to just near the surface. One day while watching the moon pass behind Mt. Discovery I noticed that the moon was not circular in shape, but instead had an irregular outline. The wavy appearance of the moon’s outline was due to differential distortion of the light reflected from the moon as it passed through the atmosphere.

Moon over Mt. Discovery. Note the distortion in the circular shape of the moon. This is most evident on the top left side of the moon in this image.

An atmospheric phenomenon that is unique to the polar regions in winter is polar stratospheric clouds. Almost all clouds that we see in the atmosphere form in the lowest layer of the atmosphere, known as the troposphere, which extends to a height of about 6 miles in the Antarctic. Polar stratospheric clouds form at heights of 9 miles or more, in the layer of the atmosphere known as the stratosphere. Normally no clouds form in the stratosphere due to the dry conditions in this layer of the atmosphere, but at very cold temperatures, what little water does exist can condense to form clouds. Polar stratospheric clouds form at temperatures less than -78 C (-108 F) and are often made up of both frozen water and nitric acid. These clouds are more commonly referred to as nacreous clouds, with the root of the word nacre meaning mother of pearl. The name comes from the stunning mother of pearl coloration of these clouds.

Nacreous clouds from Pegasus ice runway.

Because these clouds are so high in the atmosphere they remain lit by the sun long after the surface and lower clouds have fallen into shadow as the sun sets. This is similar to how the top of a tall building remains lit by the setting sun after the base of the building has already passed into shadow.

Nacreous clouds over Hut Point and McMurdo Sound. The building visible on the horizon is the hut built for Robert Falcon Scott’s first Antarctic expedition at the start of the 20th century.

While I’ve enjoyed this trip to Antarctica more than any of my previous trips, and am very happy with the data we’ve collected I’m hoping that my next blog post will be from New Zealand or back home in Colorado.

An Iridium flare flashes above the South Pole Telescope. (These flares occur when the sun reflects off of the Iridium satellites used for remote communication in Antarctica.)

NASA’s Ultra Long Duration Balloon. Once released, these balloons expand to the size of a stadium.

These light sensors (Digital Optical Modules, or DOMs) are placed deep within the ice in order to detect the blue light emitted when neutrino particles collide with atoms in the ice.

Ask an astronomer to describe the perfect place to put a telescope, and here’s what she’ll tell you: Make it cold, make it dark, make it high-altitude, and make it remote. In short, make it Antarctica.

All light-based astronomy is vulnerable to interference from the atmosphere, the same jittery effect that makes stars twinkle. Much like trying to see the bottom of a swimming pool, observing space through the moving air masses in our atmosphere causes images to wiggle and warp.

The very attributes that make Antarctica inhospitable to life make it ideal for astronomy. The high altitude means there’s less atmosphere to look through. The cold, dry air makes for minimal water vapor and less atmospheric emission of infrared light, both of which interfere with observations. Best of all, 24-hour darkness in winter means no daily temperature oscillations, reducing air currents.

The South Pole Telescope, located at the Amundsen-Scott Station near the South Pole, takes advantage of these clear skies to search for evidence of dark energy amid galaxy clusters. Dark energy is theorized to be a form of energy that is pushing everything in the universe apart.

To further reduce atmospheric interference, some astronomers use balloons to bring their instruments 35,000 feet into the air. Inexpensive compared to satellite-based astronomy, balloon-borne astronomy is ideally suited to Antarctica, where circumpolar winds high in the stratosphere carry balloons steadily and predictably around the pole.

One of the biggest astronomical efforts in Antarctica is actually taking place under the ice. IceCube is an array of ultra-sensitive light detectors buried a mile deep into the Antarctic ice sheet. These detectors can spot the passage of high-energy neutrinos, particles created by the most violent events in the universe, allowing astronomers to see impossibly distant cosmic events by detecting the neutrinos they create.

ICE-T on Dome C
An international team of astronomers have their sites set on another location in Antarctica—a formidably remote location known as Dome C—for construction of a new telescope. High on the Antarctic plateau, Dome C boasts atmospheric conditions that are even calmer—and thereby clearer—than those at the South Pole. “A telescope there would perform as well as a much larger one anywhere else on Earth,” says Will Saunders, astronomer at the Anglo-Australian Observatory. “It’s nearly as good as being in space.” The telescope in the works for Dome C, called ICE-T, will search for exoplanets, earth-like planets in other solar systems.

There is at least some compensation for enduring the harsh climate at extreme northern and southern latitudes: the chance to see an aurora. Known as aurora borealis in the north and aurora australis in the south, auroras are natural light displays caused by electrically charged particles colliding with the atoms of gas that make up our atmosphere.

Making it through the magnestosphere.

It all begins in the sun, where extreme heat rips atoms apart to form plasma, a gas made up of electrically charged particles. These charged particles stream outward from the sun in what’s called the solar wind.

Like a protective bubble, the earth’s magnetic field, or magnetosphere, deflects most of these particles away from earth. But some charged particles do enter the magnetosphere and get funneled towards the earth’s north and south poles. When these charged particles collide with the gases in our atmosphere (mainly nitrogen and oxygen) the energy of the collision causes the gases to glow, a lot like the glowing gas in a neon sign.

A multi-colored aurora over Finland.

As variable as they are beautiful, auroras can appear as ribbons, bands, arcs, or curtains—sometimes still, sometimes seeming to dance or pulsate. Green and red auroras are most common, but they can also appear in shades of pink, blue, or purple.

Since charged particles enter our atmosphere at the poles, auroras are most often seen at extreme latitudes. In the north, a common latitude for sightings is 67°, or roughly the latitude of Fairbanks, Alaska. During geomagnetic storms, however, auroras can be viewed at much lower latitudes. After a major solar event in April 2000, the “northern” lights were visible as far south as Florida.

Aurora Australis as captured by NASA’s IMAGE satellite, overlaid onto NASA’s satellite-based Blue Marble image.

Auroras are naturally unpredictable, but the likelihood of their appearance can be predicted, thanks to a satellite called the Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite, or POES, which measures the particles entering the upper atmosphere. Data from this satellite are compared to statistical data of auroral sightings to produce a prediction of where auroras are currently most likely.