Hello All!
Here's the news from McMurdo Station:
1. Flying to fix
weather stations: a report
2. Visitors
3. Long Duration Balloons
4. Studying the Fish...
1. Flying to fix weather stations: a report
My co-workers here have started to fly out to fix weather stations. They are using several modes of transportation to do so. This week they have flown to one weather station on the East side of Ross Island via the US Coast Gaurd helos (Laurie II AWS). Today, they flew to South of Ross Island to one of the weather stations on the Ross Ice Shelf (Schwedtfeger AWS). Next week, they'll fly to South Pole, on an LC-130 and then use the twin otter again to fly to more AWS sites to repair near South Pole.
I won't be going this week after all - see below for why:
2. Visitors
We have a Congressional Delegation visiting here to look over the US Antarctic Program. These folks over see the funding of the program, and will be making sure that it is going along well. I will be visiting with them for about 5 to 10 minutes or so. Should be interesting.
3. Long Duration Balloons
I've not told you
much this trip about the Long Duration Balloon (LDB) project. NASA runs
a National Scientific Balloon Facility, and working with balloonists and
groups that wish to launch science payloads use very, very high altitude
balloons (like 120,000 feet ones!) rather than using satellites and rockets
to study the upper atmosphere or other space science studies. Weather
is a critical thing for both launch and landings for these balloons. This
trip, I'm assisting the LDB forecaster. The balloons this year (two of
them) were launched several weeks ago, and have been circling over Antarctica.
They will soon land them and get the payload on a twin otter plane.
4. Studying the Fish...
As I have talked about
before on these trips, the fish in the Antarctic have an antifreeze in
them that allows them to be in the -1.9 C water without freezing solid.
These fish have developed a protein that can stop ice
growth in thier system AND help the ice be pushed out of their system.
Which fish you ask? Here's a sample set: Antarctic Dragon Fish, Antarctic
Plunder Fish, Antarctic Toothfish (not unrelated to that Patagonian Toothfish
that you aren't supposed to eat - aka Chilean Sea Bass), and of course
Ice Fish! The fun thing is that it has been found that these fish, and
the few fish in the arctic that also have the antifreezes all developed
this ability/antifreeze independently of each other..and in fact, the
evolutionary parent protiens that make up the antifreeze have been found
in the fish. Almost a snapshot of evolution in "action" The
next step is to see if these antifreezes have other applications. Very
interesting talk.
Picture
courtesy of Raytheon Polar
Services Company's Antarctic
Photo Library
That's the scoop from here - it is nice and warm out tonight - first time this trip. Its been a cold and cloudy trip so far, but nice to get a break (and the sun is up ALL the time...it summer here after all!)
Take care all!
Matthew