Space lab Antarctica

Antarctica may be at the bottom of the world, but as the coldest, driest and highest continent on Earth, it’s ideal for observing the universe

Reported by Paul Cockburn

The South Pole Telescope (SPT) is the biggest in Antarctica

W rap up warm’ has long been a mantra among astronomers everywhere, given ‘ that so much observation of the cosmos has to take place out in the open and at night. However, if you’ve ever grumbled about surviving a few hours outside during a cold British winter night, just remember it could be worse – you could be in Antarctica, or even at the South Pole.

“I still remember the first time I flew down there,” says Kael Hanson, director of the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It was early November, which was just when the station opens for most people, and it was about -45 degrees Celsius (-49 degrees Fahrenheit). It was quite a shock just to get off the aeroplane and be out in that cold. It’s blinding bright too, unbelievably bright, because you have all this snow and everything is reflecting in your face. It’s also at altitude. The first couple of days you find yourself catching your breath. Sometimes you wake up sort of gasping for air, just because of the altitude. It’s an incredibly extreme environment to live in.”

Extreme it might be, but that’s what makes Antarctica and the South Pole such an ideal spot for setting up your telescope. According to theoretical physicist Francis Halzen, also of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the South Pole now ranks with the grand research laboratories such as Fermilab and CERN. Astronomers ideally want somewhere cold, dark, remote and dry. Antarctica, and the South Pole in particular, fit the bill very well, which is why some of the world’s leading telescopes are now located less than a mile from the South Pole. Indeed, if you’re interested in millimetrewavelength observations – for viewing far distant space objects – that are generally absorbed by atmospheric moisture, then the only place arguably better than Antarctica for your telescope is in space, which is a tad more inconvenient to reach. The South Pole is therefore an ideal location for astronomers, as the growing number of observational platforms established in the last few decades clearly shows.

“One irony of Antarctic astronomy is that sometimes the South Pole just isn’t cold enough by itself”

ANTARCTICA VERSUS EUROPA

How this frozen continent compares to the icy crust of Jupiter’s moon

1 Frozen surface The ice covering Lake Vostok is around four kilometres (2.5 miles) thick. That compares with estimates of up to 30 kilometres of ice (19 miles) protecting Europa’s oceans.

2 Water world Lake Vostok remains liquid thanks to geothermal heat and high pressure. The heat for Europa’s oceans comes from tidal forces experienced during its speedy orbit around Jupiter.

3 Into the deep Measurements of Lake Vostok suggest an average depth of 432 metres (1,417 feet). Europa’s oceans are estimated at 100 kilometres (60 miles), with more than twice the volume of Earth’s oceans.