10 ms·
Sunset at the South Pole
- tambourine_man 4y agoAlways dreamt of seeing this. Don’t know if I would stand the cold, but it must be incredible.
- foobarbecue 4y agoIt's a dry cold. You'd be fine!
- mlindner 4y agoThere's no such thing as too cold, only incorrect clothing. If you have sufficient clothing you can be quite warm at any temperature.
- sharkweek 4y agoI dabble in the type two fun that is mountaineering, and this is true. A good puffy and head coverings can make even the coldest temps totally bearable.
- bombcar 4y agoYou can get infinitely hot but only so cold. Curse you thermodynamics!
- Etheryte 4y agoI'm not entirely sure, is this practically true? I would expect there to be an upper limit to energy we can concentrate in a given volume even when cosmic scales are involved.
- bombcar 4y agoI believe there is a technical physical limit but it’s insanely high (which is why “temperature in the center of the sun/nuclear blast” doesn’t really work). There’s no theoretical limit, no absolute hot to go with absolute zero.
- Vecr 4y agoWell, heat is caused by particles moving around, and they can only go the speed of light max, so there is a limit. It's still extremely hot though, anything physical would be blown apart by the surrounding near light speed particles in an imperceptibly short time.
- tialaramex 4y agoAlthough temperature can be analogised to particles moving around I believe that at the extremes the fact that's just an analogy causes problems which would be relevant here.
- Vecr 4y agoWhat do you mean by "analogised"? That's literally what's happening, at least in a classical sense, right? Brownian noise, etc? I suppose it's not quite that on a quantum level though, it's closer to nuclear physics.
- tialaramex 4y agoExactly, the problem is that at extremes "classical" physics doesn't explain what we can observe.
- wcoenen 4y agoThere is probably still a limit, because you need to breath fresh air. A human breathes at about 6 liter/minute. In terms of mass and converting to seconds, that's 0.1293 gram/second. Heat capacity of air is 0.7 Joules per gram per kelvin. So the power needed to heat up incoming air 1 degree kelvin is 0.1293*0.7=0.09051 Watt. Times a hundred (-60C to body temperature), that's 9 watt. Since the human body produces about 100 watt of heat in total, that's maybe still feasible. But having that percentage of your body heat being drawn out through your airways and lungs is getting dangerous. And it gets colder on Antarctica. And exertion will speed up breathing. Researchers on Antarctica apparently deal with by breathing through snorkels that pass through their jacket, so that the rest of the body can help to heat up the air: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24731-coldest-place-on-earth-tucked-in-antarctic-ice-pocket/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24731-coldest-place-o... Perhaps it would also be possible to recover some of the heat in exhaled air, by passing it through a heat exchanger for the incoming air.
- euroderf 4y agoSort of like an Arrakeen stillsuit but for heat.
- joshvm 4y agoI'd stress that this is at the colder locations on the continent, not the South Pole. The bigger challenge is actually the altitude. Physiological altitude can (occasionally) hit 14k ft at the Pole and those days are rough. Temperature bottoms out around -100 F/-72 C and if you're outside, you're breathing through a gaiter/balaclava). That's sufficient to warm it up. I don't recall there ever being a situation (even that cold) when breathing was challenging due to the temperature alone. Weird fact: you can't whistle when it gets that cold. I don't know if it's something to do with the immediate dense condensation or the temperature. It's not the pressure or the humidity, because indoors is OK.
- AnimalMuppet 4y agoCan you explain how physiological altitude works? I've never heard of it.
- kendallpark 4y agoThe issue is not cold, but whether you can get a highly competitive position at the South Pole Station. In order to see the sun set, you have to be part of the skeleton crew which maintains the station during the winter-over. There are no flights going in and out during the winter. If you see the sun set over the South Pole... you'll also be stuck seeing the sun rise as well. In the months between you'll be working in perpetual night.
- 7373737373 4y ago> After the sun reaches its peak, it begins to set. It’s still rotating in perfect circles around the sky; they’re just getting lower and lower each day. It would be very cool to have an extremely long exposure/solargraph of this! http://xyzon.nl/solargraphy/ http://xyzon.nl/solargraphy/
- joshvm 4y agoOne of my winter experiments that never got off the ground was to make a lunargraph. I don't think there are many places you could "easily" do that. I did also try making a solargraph as a test, with a 3D printed enclosure, but I think the extreme cold does funny stuff to the reciprocity of the paper and it was a pain to wipe off the frost every day.
- mlindner 4y agoFun fact, I saw the temperatures they're getting and I just looked this up to be sure. The freezing point of Carbon Dioxide at atmospheric pressures is -78.5C, which it reaches sometimes at the south pole. So apparently carbon dixodie can freeze out of the atmosphere (deposition) and turn to solid carbon dioxide ice in mid-winter. Though I believe because the partial pressure will be too low, you'd need to concentrate the CO2 first.
- shagie 4y agoNote the last bit with the weather report: https://brr.fyi/media/sunset/weather-data.png https://brr.fyi/media/sunset/weather-data.png The station is at 10,657 feet (it's on top of a mountain) and the air pressure is 679.1 mb. Though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_ice#/media/File:Comparison_carbon_dioxide_water_phase_diagrams.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_ice#/media/File:Comparison... is a log chart for y and doesn't have many minor ticks for X ... I want to say it's closer to -83 °C. It's significant enough that you'd notice (if you were to go outside).
- jcranmer 4y ago> The station is at 10,657 feet (it's on top of a mountain) Nitpick: it's not on top of a mountain, it's on top of a 2-mile-thick ice sheet (glacier).
- wcoenen 4y agoIt has been considered to sequester CO2 at Antarctica by just cooling the air a bit more (e.g. with a few gigawatt of wind farms), and keeping the solid CO2 in a "CO2 landfill". https://earthtechling.com/2015/11/could-we-sequester-co2-in-antarctic-ice/ https://earthtechling.com/2015/11/could-we-sequester-co2-in-...
- GalenErso 4y agoThe pictures are beautiful. But I don't see the old geodesic dome. Is it safe? Is it alright?
- dylan604 4y agothe timelapse of the sun just traveling in a circle is probably one of the most bizarre things i've seen of a real natural phenomenon. it's one of those things of just so outside my normal experience that i had never actually thought about it, but seeing it like this definitely shows how weird things are at the poles. imagine how livable (or not) a planet would be if the planet's axis were even more extreme
- chewbacha 4y agoLike Uranus? It’s completely on its side.
- dylan604 4y agoexactly. if the planets in the habitable zone had that kind of orientation, where would the livable zones be located? or a planet that was tidally locked to the sun like the moon is to the earth? a circadian rhythm would seem to be non-existent. equatorial life seems like it would be the optimal locations
- aj7 4y agohttps://twitter.com/ajtweet/status/1645561875147673600?s=61&t=E3hUmiaCpId9zJNOPWDrew https://twitter.com/ajtweet/status/1645561875147673600?s=61&...
- KineticLensman 4y ago> imagine how livable (or not) a planet would be if the planet's axis were even more extreme For a SF take on the effects of living on a planet with very extreme days (and years) take a look at the Helliconia series by Brian Aldiss [0]. Helliconia is a planet in a double-star system whose 'year' lasts for about 2500 Earth-years, and the seasons last for centuries. When the primary star dips below a mountain range, you might not see it again for 100s of years. Civilisation rises and falls over these timescales, with winter inevitably causing a reset as farming and other activities crash. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helliconia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helliconia
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- im_down_w_otp 4y agoThe whole collection of blogs is incredible. I am utterly stunned by and in awe of the facilities that have been built down there. Given the excruciatingly harsh conditions of the environment, I cannot imagine what the construction process must have been like. Looking at a lot of the pictures conjures a feeling for me like it all must have been built by some advanced alien civilization and left behind for us to occupy. The construction crews who created all that stuff should be celebrated as heroes as far as I’m concerned. Very impressive.
- bombcar 4y agoWhat surprised me is how ordinary much of the construction is - lots of it looks similar to things I’ve seen in the Midwest. The collection of doors struck me the most - some of those doors were just normal doors, others looked like a walk in freezer. Part of that may be a complex construction may work better, but a simple one can be repaired on site by those who are there.
- el_benhameen 4y agoAs luck would have it, there’s this article for those interested in the doors: https://brr.fyi/posts/doors-of-mcmurdo https://brr.fyi/posts/doors-of-mcmurdo
- belter 4y agoThey have ATM's...looks like a practical joke... https://brr.fyi/posts/mcmurdo-automated-teller-machines https://brr.fyi/posts/mcmurdo-automated-teller-machines
- ghaff 4y agoI can't say I'm shocked. Effectively cities probably tend to function like cities in a lot of places. I assume something like an aircraft carrier might be different but I wouldn't even bet against ATMs there.
- sharkweek 4y agoTo a lesser extent, a friend of mine moved to Fairbanks, Alaska with her husband where they’d get near-full days of sun in the summer and dark in the winter. They made it about five years (they were there on a med school debt reduction program to work in smaller communities) and then noped the hell out as fast as they could. They are both pretty resilient people but really struggled with the months of these daylight patterns. Even after “getting used to it” they felt the oppression of the dark seasons particularity hard. I’d be curious to know what the science is around making this more bearable for long term stays in that type of condition. I’m laughing at the photos of tropical beaches in the cafeteria photos from the article but I’m guessing those honestly probably do offer a slight marginal boost!
- bombcar 4y agoFrom what I’ve read regulating the light is extremely important - which necessitates going far indoors at set times where you can have non-blue light to simulate sunset. Endless day can wear on you like endless night, but the night can fought with proper lighting.
- lb1lf 4y agoThis. I lived way up north a few years ago - near 70N - and the winters were a breeze. What wore me down was the summers - you could work into the evening and still have plenty daylight left to socialise outdoors after work. If you weren't careful, though, suddenly you'd notice that the pesky sun was higher in the sky than it had been a couple of hours ago, and you knew you were in for a hard day.
- ghaff 4y agoThe counter-argument I've heard from someone who lived there is that--relative to northern continental US--you basically have the same amount of non-work light in the winters (i.e. zero). But you have as much light as you could ever want (and maybe more) between the equinoxes.
- gooseyman 4y agoThe 5 day time lapse photo is awesome. How did it get taken such that it followed the sun perfectly and without freezing?
- veleek 4y agoI assumed it was just a 360 camera, but I have no idea how they kept it unfrozen.
- joshvm 4y agoThis was taken by Robert Schwarz who's one of the more prolific winterovers and also spent a lot of his time down there perfecting his photography. A common project for folks down there is building camera boxes. Quite often we use things like old insulated medical crates (think scrap polystyrene) with some heating device inside. 5 days is doable - people often put cameras out for days to do timelapses - but the impressive thing here is the tracking. It's also taken in summer when it's not that cold. The first problem is power. I have no idea where he got a hookup from that spot - I'd guess running a cable from BICEP (the closest dish with the mast on the roof). Then there's heating for the camera, which you can solve easily enough if you have power, but the real challenge is keeping the tracker moving. I guess if you somehow insulated the entire gear assembly you could do it.
- gooseyman 4y agoThis is awesome - thank you!
- tppiotrowski 4y agoI believe there is an overnight camping experience in Antarctica of you come on one of the tourist cruise ships. I always thought this was funny because the sun never sets so I imagine you're just sitting in a fully lit tent until someone comes to tell you it's morning and time to go back aboard the ship.
- saiya-jin 4y agoWelcome to summer camping ie in norway, finland or similar. Sun is just barely above horizon all day, and just moves a bit lower during 'night'. You can get used to it, sort of.
- alexjm 4y agoIf you're curious what spending the night on Antarctica might look like, this video shows one experience (although it's from a part of the year with daylight & darkness). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA9fmEe8nJU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA9fmEe8nJU
- ianzakalwe 4y agoMy new favourite blog to read online!
- mhb 4y agoWas hoping that the green flash was stretched out there.
- joshvm 4y agoIt is prolonged, if it appears. In most places where you can view it (typically sunset over oceans?) it lasts seconds. The flash still relies on the air conditions being amenable above where the sunset is. It's not uncommon for the horizons to be hazy because of blowing snow in your line of sight, or for there to be clouds, etc. But the Sun can be at the right elevation below the horizon for minutes to hours. Byrd claimed it lasted over 35 minutes during his expedition in 1929.
- aj7 4y agoMe too. I SAW the green flash on the beach at Naples, FL. Before, it had been just the title of a very dog-eared book in the UC Berkeley Physics library, that almost everyone in the department had thumbed through at some point.
- Jun8 4y agoGreat set of posts! This one brought to mind: I think there's an unexplored niche of vampire movies where our protagonist lives 6 months in each hemisphere per year to minimize downtime in a coffin. With careful planning and a private jet, you can probably reduce sun time to a few hours per year. This would be an interesting calculation to do. Bonus Sunday thought: It's always said that ants are found on all continents except Antarctica, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant (surely there must be some ants in the buildings). I've always thought it would be interesting to try to introduce them there, sort of like a modern-day Herostratos.
- sjs382 4y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_Days_of_Night https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_Days_of_Night
- aflag 4y agoDoesn't the poles get normalish day/night cycles during autumn and spring? If so, it would be a bit more than just a few hours of sun light each year.
- LadyCailin 4y agoNo. That’s literally what the article is about.
- netsharc 4y agoYour question made me wonder why the cycle would be a year long. I realized that's because when standing at 90 degrees north or south you're just rotating on the spot. There's only the yearly day/night cycle because of the 23.5 degree tilt of the earth's axis, and this doesn't change relative to the plane of the orbit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9MU4TouzII&t=61 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9MU4TouzII&t=61 This also explains why across 24 hours on the video in the blog the sun just "revolves" at the same height across the sky. In reality it's setting but it's imperceptible. At less than 90 degrees (anyone know the longitude?), the earth's rotation comes back into effect and the sun does go "behind the earth", i.e. it sets, daily, for a few months.
- ghotli 4y agoBest blog on the internet. I hope the author sees this, I've enjoyed every post the whole time through.
- heywhatupboys 4y agowhy is there an american flag planted there?
- haunter 4y agoBecause it’s a research station funded by and under the jurisdiction of the US Just like how most country does it and that’s why the Antarctic Treaty System exist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_stations_in_Antarctica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_stations_in_Antarctic...
- vishnugupta 4y agoIncredible shots. As beautiful as they are, these photos and videos show how utterly inhospitable large parts of the earth is. Humans can live comfortably on only a tiny fraction of earth.
- ars 4y agoI think you have that in reverse. The South (and North) poles are only a small part of the Earth. Humans can live comfortably on the vast majority of the land on earth. (Unless you were including the oceans in your sentence?)
- bonzini 4y agoIf comfortably includes "with air conditioning in the summer and more than just a fireplace in the winter", that's cheating. Either humans can live comfortably in Antarctica, or we can only live comfortably in the vicinity of the equator.
- ars 4y agoHumans can and do live in hot places without air conditioning. And warm clothing is a thing.
- mlindner 4y agoHumans have lived "comfortably" long before air conditioning was available in many of the areas it now is. Either through creating dwellings that keep away heat and the simple act of not wearing clothing. And fire is the oldest technology of human kind and has been in use since the dawn of human history.
- walrus01 4y agoWe have the technology to live quite comfortably at the south pole, the main question is money and budget, and dollars per kg of the fuel and food and other consumable supplies to keep it running. The south pole station having nearly zero local resources except for fresh water is not a bad analog for mars logistics.
- beebeepka 4y agoAntarctica... icy graveyard of hubris, not hostile to humanity, but worse... utterly indifferent, a blank wall at the edge of the universe, defying us to find meaning in it. So you can see why I'm not going.
- iambateman 4y agoWhen I went to Sweden for a semester, I knew the “days would be short” but what I didn’t understand was _how_ they would be short. I imagined the sun “flying across the sky” quickly to make it a short day. In fact, the sun barely peeks up over the horizon, glimmers with some disorienting side-light for a few hours before settling back below the horizon. This created an effect which was like a literal twilight zone and was totally surreal.
- cdelsolar 4y agoI visited Reykjavik during the winter solstice, and stayed there for a bit over a week. I had the same misapprehension as you. At noon, the sun was just barely over the horizon and it felt like days never got much brighter than twilight. It was very strange.
- aj7 4y agoEven northern Germany, in Gottingen, was jarring to this American. You carefully planned your day around daylight, and made sure to go outside at lunchtime.
- roboben 4y agoNot showing a picture of the main dish. How brutal!
- NKosmatos 4y agoIt’s been stated by others but I’m going to repeat it once more, one of the best blogs out there!!! The way it’s written, the whole style of it, the photos, the subject… the mix of all these things leaves you wanting more. For sure I’d pay if it was subscription based and was more frequent :-)
- aj7 4y agoAt night, in the dead of winter, it gets within 60C of the record for superconductivity. Outside. Mars is warmer, in general, but there is effectively a vacuum, as far as breathing is concerned.