Mar
29
2021
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Cruising for Mollusks
Scientists are going to the ends of the Earth to discover all they can about an obscure group of sparkly, worm-like mollusks. There's lots of these critters living on the seafloor surrounding Antarctica, but they're not easy to get at and only a few scientists are studying them.
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Mar
15
2021
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Charting a Genetic Sea Change
Scientists are mapping the coastline of ancient Antarctica using DNA from underwater invertebrates alive today. In October, despite the ongoing COVID pandemic, a team of researchers sailed from California to Antarctica to bring back the sea creatures with evidence of a long-lost transantarctic sea coded into their genes.
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Mar
01
2021
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Podcast: The Fire Department
The Antarctic Sun is taking a behind-the-scenes look at the workers and what they do to make science at the bottom of the world possible. This Episode: The Fire Department. Even on a continent without any trees, fire is a big concern. The dry, windy conditions mean that if left alone, a spark could get out of control quickly.
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Feb
15
2021
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On the Wings of Petrels
Ecologist Donna Fraser carefully makes her way across a low rocky ridge towards a mass of gray feathers with a beak. It's the baby chick of a southern giant petrel.
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Feb
01
2021
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Counting on Seals
Seal science in Antarctica continues, even as the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the world. Fewer researchers and support staff traveled to Antarctica in 2020 to reduce the risk of introducing the virus to the continent. One of the few science teams that did go is working on the long-term study of Weddell seals in McMurdo Sound.
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Jan
18
2021
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Weddell Seals Sing Songs Humans Can't Hear
The seals of McMurdo Sound are more vocal than previously thought. A new research paper published in the December edition of The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America shows that Weddell seals vocalize underwater at frequencies too high for humans to hear.
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Dec
14
2020
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A Bot in the Ocean
During the past austral summer, scientists released an autonomous seafaring robot into the Southern Ocean. For four months, the small "Wave Glider" navigated the frigid Antarctic waters, collecting data on the surrounding ocean and atmosphere.
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Nov
30
2020
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An Aerial Assessment of Adelie Penguins
Flying robots are helping scientists track the population of Adelie Penguins. This past austral summer, researchers flew a small fleet of coordinated unmanned aerial vehicles, or "UAVs," over Cape Crozier, one of the largest Adelie penguin colonies in the world, photographing it in greater detail than ever before.
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Nov
16
2020
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The Infamy of the Skua
Like clockwork in late November, the residents of McMurdo Station look to the sky and spot something that many haven't seen in months - birds. The arrival of these feathered creatures is greeted by many with curiosity and anticipation, but also with some suspicion.
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Nov
02
2020
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Podcast: The Search and Rescue Team
In Antarctica, scientists conduct cutting edge research on a harsh and barren continent. It's no easy task, but to help make it happen the U.S. Antarctic Program employs small army of support staff to get these researchers the supplies they need, transport them to where they need to go and keep them safe throughout.
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Oct
12
2020
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Southernmost Telescope Gets an Array of Upgrades
One of the telescopes at the bottom of the world is getting a major upgrade. The South Pole's venerable Keck Array is being reconstituted into the more powerful BICEP Array, making it more sensitive and better able to observe the most ancient light in the universe.
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Sep
28
2020
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Heavy Cosmic Rays - Part II: The Death and Life of SuperTIGER-II
The season before SuperTIGER-II's successful 2019 flight, the payload had an unexpectedly short flight over Antarctica. Brought down after less than a day because of a problem with the balloon carrying it, it landed in a crevasse field 150 miles from McMurdo Station. This could easily have ended in calamity. Instead, it led to one of the most daring and complicated recoveries of a long-duration balloon payload in recent memory.
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Sep
14
2020
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Heavy Cosmic Rays - Part I: The Flight of SuperTIGER-II
In December 2019, SuperTIGER clawed its way back into the upper atmosphere. The second flight of the SuperTIGER cosmic ray experiment, officially dubbed SuperTIGER-II, flew high above the icy continent for more than a month, collecting data on the high-energy particles that zip through the cosmos.
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Thwaites Glacier - Present
Thwaites Glacier - Past
