Blog post: SPIDER’s Eyes

Our group has an official blog and web site, run out of Princeton: http://spider.princeton.edu.  We also have a Twitter presence (@SPIDERCMB) and blogs and photo collections by numerous other team members.  We even recently had a writeup in Scientific American; the writer interviewed a few SPIDER team members, and quoted me more than I expected.

I recently made my first posting on the official blog: a brief discussion of SPIDER’s eyes, the six telescopes built by our team at Caltech/JPL.

A SPIDER focal plane, showing the four detector tiles (picture by J. Gudmundson)

Pressure ridges

On Wednesday, Nov. 19 I was lucky enough to take a tour of the nearby pressure ridges as part of a group of SPIDER personnel.  The trip left at 4 a.m. (remember, 24-hour sunlight!) and I was 6th alternate to the 10-person trip, so I didn’t expect to go.  It turned out that I couldn’t sleep, though, so I showed up anyway… and since 3 people cancelled and only 2 alternates showed, I made the trip!

It was a cloudy, windy morning, so all of the pictures are dim and low-contrast.  It would be fun to visit again on a sunny day.  Nonetheless, the cold, wind, and clouds made the whole experience feel more… Antarctic.

The trip began at 4 a.m. with a quick drive to Scott Base, New Zealand’s base of operations on the continent.  Scott Base is off-limits to Americans most of the time, except for their store (which is nicer than ours) and once a week their bar (America night!).  It’s all color-coordinated in a nice green, and I’m told that it’s cleaner than McMurdo and less like a mining town.  We didn’t enter Scott Base, just parked there to walk to the pressure ridges.

New Zealand’s Scott Base

The pressure ridges are where the sea ice rams up against the glacier, producing impressive person-height buckling features and crevasses.

First look at the pressure ridges

The exposed ice from underneath is remarkably blue.  It was hard to capture in photos (particularly given the lighting), but extraordinary in person.

Blue ice

Our expedition was led by Anne DalVera, one of the managers of the LDB field camp.  She’s been coming to the ice for almost 20 seasons, and years ago she was a member of the first team of women to ski to the South Pole.

Anne (leading, in black) and members of the SPIDER team (Lorenzo in foreground)

Early on in the trip we encountered several melt pools.  Watch your step – that’s the ocean under us, and it’s a long way to the bottom.

Melt pool

We encountered many breathtaking blue ice promontories and crevasses…

Blue ice crevasse

View into a crevasse

Me on return from the pressure ridges, lightly frosted with ice

 

 

Strolling around McMurdo

McMurdo station lies on the shore of McMurdo sound (currently frozen over).  It has a feel somewhere between ski lodge and mining town (mostly the latter).  It’s utilitarian, hilly, and often muddy and icy, but the surrounding landscape and seascape are beautiful.  There are several fun short hikes around the area, so I’ve posted a few photos below.

In many of the photos below you’ll notice the striking contrast between the blinding-white ice and the extremely dark dirt and rock.  This is not a camera effect: the rock on Ross Island is volcanic in origin, and generally black or a very dark red.  This also makes the ground fairly jagged and uneven – I live in my hiking boots out here.

Panorama of Mactown, looking toward the sea ice and church

Overlooking Mactown from the Hut Point Ridge

Sea ice from near Hut Point

A view across the ice from Hut Point ridge

There isn’t much wildlife in Antarctica, but we do see two major animals around McMurdo.  Seals (often Weddell seals) are commonly seen lounging on the sea ice; we saw one with a pup out on a hike near the pressure ridges, but I couldn’t get a good picture.

Seals on the sea ice, from near Hut Point.

Skuas are good-sized brown sea birds commonly seen around town.  They are not afraid of people (I’ve almost tripped over one more than once) and constantly on the look out to scavenge food from people.

A Skua on Hut Point ridge

Hut point is an easy stroll from McMurdo station, and home to Discovery Hut, a base built by a British expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott in 1902.  It’s currently closed for renovation.

Discovery Hut on Hut Point

 

Large sculpture of a skiier overlooking McMurdo

A Day at LDB

On a typical day, the team assembles for breakfast in the station galley circa 7 a.m.  The cooks do a fantastic job: our meals are varied and very good, especially given the challenges of obtaining fresh ingredients.  Here and elsewhere, all station personnel are fastidious about hand-washing: the last thing anyone down here wants is to get sick. At 7:30 a.m. we catch a ride to the Long Duration Balloon (LDB) field camp on a massive Kress personnel transport vehicle.  The Kress takes large groups to and from LDB at the beginning and end of the day; ordinary van shuttles run hourly the rest of the day. The LDB camp is a few miles away from the main station.  Snow cover there is more complete, and the weather is often a bit windier and colder than at McMurdo.  Starting from the left in the photo below, you can see the three high bays: the smaller white one at left (COSI), followed by the two big ones (ANITA and SPIDER).  The next buildings are home to the riggers and communications technicians, followed by the toilets (“I’ll be back, I have to stop at Building 92…”).  The yellow building mostly behind the sign is the galley, where staff cooks make us fantastic lunches each day.  My work day is spent in the rightmost high bay: Building 95.

The LDB shuttle stop

The three high bays: from left to right, COSI, ANITA, and SPIDER.

In the high bay we make coffee and do laptop work on the mezzanine, a second floor of sorts in the back half of the high bay.  But that’s not where the real excitement happens…

The high bay mezzanine, where we keep our laptops. The back shelves contain our ECW gear and sleeping bags.

SPIDER itself lives in the main high bay.  The photo below shows it as it was on November 27th, just after the cryostat (white) was mated to the gondola (black and silver support frame).  The cryostat keeps the six telescopes (aluminum lens caps visible in the photo) cold so that their superconducting detectors can operate.  My colleagues and I at Caltech and JPL spent the last several years building those telescopes, and it’s very exciting to finally prepare them to observe the sky.  The gondola is a lightweight carbon fiber structure that supports and scans the cryostat across the sky while it hangs below the balloon (or in this case below the crane).  The NASA-provided communications package sits below the floor of the gondola.  Everything shown here will soon be surrounded by a reflective sun shield, to protect it from the heat of the sun at float altitude.  The whole thing currently rests on a wheeled cart for convenience, but that will not fly.

SPIDER on Nov. 27, with the cryostat (white) mated to the gondola (black frame)

In addition to the science, LDBs surroundings are simply amazing to see – probably one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. Behind the high bays is a vast snow plane to the horizon – not much to photograph, but impressive to see.  In another direction you can see the aptly-named White Island and Black Island…

A view from LDB, showing White and Black Islands (I think) in the distance.

… and looming above it all is Mount Erebus, the world’s southernmost active volcano.  I’m told that Erebus is about 25 miles away from us, but on a clear day there is no hint of that distance: it looks like you could walk there.

Mount Erebus

Circa 5:30 p.m. most of us march back to the Kress for the trip back to town for dinner.  Some of us stay later or overnight when work demands it.

Heading home for the night.

The Long Journey South

I traveled to Antarctica as part of the U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP), which provides support for researchers and support personnel working at the three U.S. Antarctic bases (McMurdo, Palmer, and South Pole) and various field locations.  My work this year takes me to McMurdo station, which has been a major gateway to the continent for more than a century.  I will work at the Long Duration Balloon (LDB) facility, several miles out from the main station.  I also collaborate on several instruments at South Pole Station, but doubt that I will make it out there this time around.  Folks heading to Pole all pass through McMurdo on their way.

Official USAP luggage tags. Next stop: Antarctica!

The trip to Antarctica begins with a flight to the USAP embarkation facility in Christchurch, New Zealand.  I left Los Angeles airport the night of Tuesday, Nov. 11th for a 14-hour flight to Sydney, Australia.  After a two-hour layover there I hopped on a 3-hour flight to Christchurch (this time in business class!).  By then it was the afternoon of Nov. 14th (I lost a day at the International Date Line).  Travelers stay two nights in Christchurch before their “ice flight”, though weather delays are common.

Along the way I was happy to learn that I was traveling with two colleagues: Abby Vieregg (Chicago) and Steve Boggs (Berkeley).  We were the last arrivals for each of the this year’s three long-duration balloon projects: ANITA (Abby), COSI (Steve) and SPIDER (me).  They made good company for the trip, particularly for exploring Christchurch.

My ice flight companions, Steve and Abby

The next morning was spent at the USAP’s Clothing Distribution Center, where we were issued our Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear. The government issues you everything you need to live and work well below freezing, including long underwear, gloves, socks, boots, and a cozy parka known as “Big Red”. Much of that is actually too warm for everyday use in McMurdo (I’ll be spending most of my time in heated buildings), but it really comes in handy on hikes and when the wind comes up.

My ECW allotment (and luggage)

After ECW issue we spent most of the rest of the day strolling around Christchurch. This was a particularly surreal experience for my companions, who had visited before an earthquake destroyed so much of the town in 2011. The cathedral in the town center was gutted, and the town center had been replaced with a “container mall”: a surprisingly nice public space of stores and cafes, all built out of shipping containers.

A beautiful day at the “container mall” in Christchurch

The next morning (after a 3-hour flight delay) we changed into our cold weather gear and piled onto a C17, a massive military cargo transport plane. The trip to the ice lasted 5 (very loud) hours.

Boarding the C17 in Christchurch

On board the C17

As we approached landing the views from the windows were spectacular. The passengers put on sunglasses and lined up to gaze out of the tiny portholes at the blazingly-bright ice.

We landed, rode a transport to the station, completed a brief safety briefing, grabbed our luggage, and made it to the cafeteria just in time for dinner with our colleagues. It was a bright sunny evening: the next sunset is February 20th, so I won’t see nightfall again until I return to the states. Welcome to Antarctica!

One Week on the Ice

It’s been just over a week since I first arrived at McMurdo Station, Antarctica – my first week “on the ice”, as folks say down here.  I’m currently sitting in my dorm’s library, waiting on my laundry and catching up on some work.  All mundane things to do on a Sunday afternoon, but when I step outside, the view is extraordinary…

A view from McMurdo across the sea ice, on the way to the Coffee House.

I left California late in the evening on Tuesday, November 11th, for a research trip to Antarctica that should last the rest of 2014.  We’re here to launch SPIDER, a telescope to observe the oldest light in the universe and look for hints of gravitational waves from the Big Bang.  It’s a fantastic instrument that I’ve worked on for several years, and it’s great to finally be here (we would have been here last year, had some Congressional brinksmanship not shut down the government last October…).  I couldn’t ask for a better team of colleagues to work with, and it’s been an adventure already.  It is tough to be away from family for so long, but fortunately my daughter, Alyssa, has been sending her support:

Alyssa in her SPIDER team shirt

Family and friends have asked to hear more about the trip: what I’ve been doing, and what it’s like in Antarctica.  I have been hesitant because so many others have already written and blogged about the experience (and taken far better photographs than I will).  Nonetheless I’ll be giving it a try, hoping to give the folks at home an impression of what this adventure is like!