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ROALD AMUNDSEN
Roald Amundsen (1872-1928), first person to reach the South Pole.
Credit: Steve Nicklas (NOS, NGS), NOAA |
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SCOTT AT THE POLE
This photo, taken at the South Pole on Jan. 18, 1912, shows British explorer Robert Falcon Scott (far left) and his party at the tent erected by Norwegian Roald Amundsen, who became the first man to reach the Pole on Dec. 14, 1911. The flag of Norway flies above the tent. From left
to right: Scott, Titus Oates,
E.A. Wilson and E.R. Evans.
Credit: Photo by H.R. Bowers, © Royal Geographical Society |
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IN THE FIFTIES
This photo of the first South Pole station was taken in January of 1957 after U.S. Navy Seabees completed construction. Work began on Nov. 20, 1956, and by Christmas, the basic station including the buildings, tunnel system, utilities, communications equipment and cargo storage was finished. The station was officially commissioned on Jan. 23, 1957.
Credit: U.S. Navy, National Science Foundation |
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GETTING THERE
The workhorse aircraft that moves people, equipment and supplies to and from the South Pole is the Lockheed C-130 'Hercules.' The basic design, which has been in production since the mid-1950s, is about 100 feet long and can carry more than 40,000 pounds of cargo. The 'Hercs' that service the Pole are outfitted with skis to land on ice and snow. One such model is shown here, flying over the dome of a relatively new South Pole station in 1974.
Credit: National Science Foundation, USAP |
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NIGHT LIGHTS
The aurora australis — the Southern Lights — are seen over the National Science Foundation's new Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The eerie visual effect arises when charged particles blown off the Sun (the 'solar wind') are caught in the Earth's magnetic field and travel along the field lines, colliding with molecules of oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere.
Credit: Jonathan Berry, National Science Foundation |
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PHYSICS ON ICE
A Digital Optical Module (DOM) is lowered into a hole drilled in the ice near South Pole station as part of the IceCube project. When finished, it will detect elusive particles called neutrinos arriving from distant astrophysical sources and carrying information about those sources, just as rays of light reveal objects to conventional telescopes. Eventually 80 holes will be drilled, each 2.4 kilometers deep and containing 60 DOMs. When neutrinos pass through the ultra-clear ice, some collide with atoms and produce telltale blue light that is detected by the DOMs. To learnmore, see: http://icecube.wisc.edu.
Credit: Ethan Dicks, National Science Foundation |
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WAY COOL
Even in the warmest days of the austral summer (December and January), it can get very cold at the South Pole. This image shows U.S. Antarctic Program participant Jay Cairns after a day of erecting high-frequency antenna wire at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.
Credit: Levi Littrell, National Science Foundation |
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A MIGHTY BLOW
Antarctica is the windiest of the continents, in large part because of the katabatic winds that arise when super-cold air sinks over the plateau region around the Pole. The resulting gusts can reach well over 100 mph. In this photo, U.S. Antarctic Program participant Al Baker steadies himself in high winds at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The flags of the 12 nations that originally signed the Antarctic Treaty in 1959 fly at the pole.
Credit: Charles Kaminski, National Science Foundation |
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SEEN FROM ABOVE
This aerial photo from October of 2005 shows the new South Pole Station (without its final outer layers) in the upper right portion of the frame. The old station is the geodesic dome at lower left.
Credit: Scot Jackson, NSF |
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LOOK AROUND
A panoramic view of the area around the new station shows its location in relation to other landmarks. This image was taken in September of 2004.
Credit: J. Dana Hrubes, Space Sciences Laboratory, South Pole station |
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TIME MACHINE
The South Pole, with its cold, dry air, is an ideal location to study the faint Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation – the leftover glow from shortly after the Big Bang that produced our universe. Patterns in these dim photons reveal the shape of the cosmos 13 billion years ago. One instrument that measures aspects of the CMB is the Degree Angular Scale Interferometer (DASI), shown here. It detects temperature and polarization variations in CMB with high sensitivity. See http://astro.uchicago.edu/dasi/.
Credit: Jon Yamasaki, DASI Winterover |
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RARE SNOWFALL
The ice sheet below the South Pole is nearly two miles thick. It is formed over centuries as snowfall from clouds such as those shown in this 1960 photo is gradually compacted and squeezed into ice.
Credit: U.S. Navy, NAVFAC Archives |
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SEABEES
The U.S. Navy South Pole station was built by the Seabees, the U.S. Naval Construction Force. For more on this organization, see http://www.seabee.navy.mil
Credit: U.S. Navy |
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SAILOR ARTIST
This watercolor is only one of many art works by Robert Charles Haun, who served as staff artist to the naval mission at the South Pole. He was there during the 1955-56 season and produced 75 pictures in various media. For more information, see: http://www.history.navy.mil/ac/artist/h/haun/haun1.html
Credit: Naval Historical Center Art Collection |
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HALF BURIED
When this photo was taken in 1999, drifting snow had covered much of the dome of the South Pole station. The entrance was at ground level when the station was completed in 1975.
Credit: Josh Landis, National Science Foundation |
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END OF AN ERA
By early 2006, very little remained under the dome of the 1975 South Pole station. Where three modular buildings once stood, relics of 30 years of human occupation were awaiting reuse or recycling.
Credit: Peter West, National Science Foundation |
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