Replies to your questions

Hi Michelle

The best thing about being a scientist is that every day you learn something new about the world. That's why I'm at the South Pole so we can learn new things about the Universe.  The South Pole has been know about for quite a while but the first person to reach here was a Norwegian with the great name of Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen, closely followed by a British explorer called Scott. That's why our station is called the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. 


Dear Zoe,
Almost everyone from the U.S. who goes to Antarctica stops first at McMurdo station.  It's the largest station on the continent, and there are over a thousand people there during the summer.  Unlike the south pole, there are mountains where you can hike.  There are also seals, and penguins, skua (big birds) and other wildlife.  It's a neat place, but we're usually too tired from traveling to explore it.


Dear Skylar,
Science is a lot of fun.  You have to spend a long time in school, and you work long hours, but it's well worth it.  You get to spend your day solving interesting problems, and sometimes you get to see things that nobody has ever seen before.

P.S. We watched the inauguration on television screens in the cafeteria a few days after it happened.  It must have been exciting to be there.


Dear Johan,
This year we had more than 250 people working at the south pole during the summer.  This winter there are only 43 of us.  Eight people work directly with the science experiments, and the rest keep the station running.


Dear Jeongtaek,
Our telescope is in use almost all the time, all year round.  The light from the cosmic microwave background is very weak, and we have to observe the same patch of the sky for months in order to see what we're looking for.  It's lucky for us that most of the observing is controlled by a computer, so the telescope continues to take data even while we're asleep.


Dear Erin,
We helped build SPT, but a project this big involves a lot of people: dozens of scientists and students, but also engineers, machinists, steel-workers, carpenters, and others.  It was a lot of fun watching all the different parts come together.  


Dear Shreya,
You're right: there's no sunrise or sunset to tell us what time of day it is.  We all live on a 24 hours day, but there's no reason to say that the day begins at any particular time rather than some other time.  Since all the planes that land here come from New Zealand, they decided to set our clocks to be the same as New Zealand time.  


Dear Alyssa,
There aren't any penguins here at the south pole, nor any other plants or animals except people.  Last year as we were arriving at the start of the summer we saw lots of penguins, and also a few seals while at McMurdo station.  

The coldest it's ever been at the south pole was in 1982, when the temperature dropped to -117F.  So far the coldest we've seen is around -93F, though it's usually closer to -80.


Dear Luca,
The ice here is about 1.6 miles deep here.  It's high enough that the air is less dense.  It's harder to run or play sports, especially when you first arrive.  But, except for the lack of air, you'd never know you were high up.  When you look outside, all you see is flat white snow stretching off to the horizon in all directions. 


Dear Tracie,
The South Pole Telescope is the most interesting experiment I've ever worked on.  We're looking at several different things in the sky.  One of big projects is finding new galaxy clusters, which are the largest objects in the universe.  Seeing something that nobody has ever seen before is always exciting.  But, a lot of our every-day work involves solving problems with electronics and computers, which can also be a lot of fun.


Dear Brandon,
People here at the south pole do all sorts of things for fun.  There is a gym with sports such as volleyball and yoga.  There's a music room and we have several bands, and an art room with paint and sewing supplies.  We have clubs that meet to talk about photography and to play board games.  Also, a lot of us enjoy reading, and there's a library full of books down here.  

It does get very dark here, especially during the half of the month when the moon is below the horizon.  We have to follow a line of flags in the snow in order to find out way to the telescope.  The good thing is that when it's really dark, the aurora and the stars are especially beautiful.


Dear Samira,
We're both here working on the South Pole Telescope.  For the most part we're here to repair things when they break, but we also get to look at data from the telescope.  

As far as we know, the universe is about 14 billion years old.  That number comes from combining data from lots of different telescopes around the world.  (Including some that are satellites in space.)  A billion is such a large number that it's hard to think about.  To get some idea of how long that is, 14 billion SECONDS is more than 400 years.


Dear Simona,
The stars are very bright.  For those of us who live in the north hemisphere, it's neat to see different stars here.  I was really excited to see the Magellanic Clouds, which are nearby galaxies.  They contain billions of stars, and you can see them without a telescope.  Even brighter than the stars, though, are the auroras, also called the southern lights.


Dear Paul,
Outside it's very cold (about -80 degrees Fahrenheit), and there's nothing to see by flat white ice stretching out in all directions to the horizon.  It's a lot like what you'd expect a desert to look like.  (And it actually is a desert, it's just a very cold desert.)  Inside the south pole station, though, it's warm and cozy and quite comfortable.  It's a lot like being on a large ship, except that it doesn't rock.