Yesterday I woke up to experience my first official day on the job. Monday, I had enough time to recover a bit, get plenty of water, and get a decent night's sleep. OK, down time is OVER! Tuesday morning, I woke up early to post a journal, grab a tasty breakfast at the galley, and then head off to the 8 am IceCube planning meeting. There I met a lot of the people responsible for making the IceCube project become a reality, most of whom you will meet in this and future posts.
My main work is on the IceTop portion of the IceCube project, in which we are installing tanks on the surface, next to each of the 2.5 km deep holes for the IceCube strings of light sensors. Each IceCube string will get 2 IceTop tanks, each tank gets 2 DOMs (light sensors). The IceTop sensors will study cosmic rays coming crashing down through the atmosphere, creating a shower of interesting subatomic particles to study.
Dr. Hermann Kolanoski attaches a DOM light detection module to the mounting brackets, so it can be installed in an IceTop tank.
The day was bright and clear, and the air was filled with tiny ice crystals that made the air sparkle like a tiny light show. The ice crystals farther up in the air made an interesting light effect called a "halo" - similar to a rainbow but instead of drops of water, it's made by these tiny ice crystals.
First day out, the air was filled with ice crystals, which created this awesome halo around the sun! The flag in the foreground is a marker for the IceCube project
One interesting part of the IceTop tanks is that they will be filled with ice - but not just any ice. This ice needs to be perfectly crystal clear! Try making clear ice in the ice cube tray in your freezer. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Are you done? well go back and finish. You'll have to wait a while for it to freeze.
OK, now are you done? great! put some ice in a glass. Is it perfectly crystal clear? or do you see lots of tiny bubbles in it? if you can't make a tiny perfectly clear ice cube, imagine making an ice cube the size of a hot tub, without any bubbles at all! Any ideas on how to do it? Chemistry students - figure out why do the bubbles form, and how can you prevent them from being in the ice? then tell your teacher and ask for extra credit :) I will let you know how the IceTop people do it, in a later post. In the mean time, fill the glass of ice with tap water and enjoy, because it is important to stay well hydrated, especially in a place like the South Pole.
Anyway, our day-to-day tasks are more mundane at this point. These are the tasks I helped with for the past two days:
The first step is prepare the empty tanks by placing a metal frame on top, which will eventually hold a sun-shield. Much later in the process, the sun shield will be installed to prevent sun from warming the ice as they freeze the tanks, later on.
Casey O'Hara getting ready to install a DOM into the IceTop tank upon which he is standing. The railing he is holding to steady himself is actually the framework upon which the sun shade will be installed in one of the final steps of IceTop installation.
Next we make room in a box on the side, which will hold a computer system called the "Freeze Control Unit" or FCU for short. This helps control the water as it freezes, to make sure we don't get any pesky bubbles!
Then we install the DOMs into the tank, hanging down from the top, and close the lid. See the previous picture to see how Dr. Kolanoski prepares the DOMs to go into the tank.
Finally, we placed a "Surface Junction Box" or SJB between the two tanks, and connected cables for the FCU power and data, and plugged in the DOMs.
James Roth (black helmet) runs cables over to Chris Elliott (blue helmet) to be wired into the surface junction box. The box connects two IceTop tanks to an IceCube string of sensors nearby.
There are still many steps to go before these tanks are done - not least of which is filling the tanks with water and freezing them perfectly clear! but this was just a small start.
Inside the Purple Palace (the IceTop deployment tent), James Roth (seated), Dr. Hermann Kolanoski (walking towards camera), and Chris Elliott (background) plan for the deployment of more IceTop modules.
A note about this project, and this goes for almost every aspect of every research project being done down here in Antarctica. None of these steps would be all that hard, under normal conditions. But, when your fingers and toes are freezing; you are wearing thick gloves and tons of thick clothing, goggles, a face shield, and a hard hat; and every major move you make leaves you out of breath due to altitude; these things all add up to make a simple task much more complicated!
No, not an alien invader. It's just Mr. O'Hara wearing his protective Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear. The helmet is required in the Drill Camp for head protection, the goggles and face shield protect his eyes and face from the sun and wind, and the thick parka is obviously for warmth! All this protective gear keeps me alive and healthy but also makes otherwise simple tasks much more difficult.
Tomorrow: snowmobile training! oh yeahhh!