Friday, May 20, 2011

South Pole Station

As a Ham Radio operator I ran phone patches for the crew for 2 years enabling the personal to talk to family and friends here in the states. As a result I am always interested in any article that is published on the pole. Here is an excellent article from wikipedia .

Since the Amundsen-Scott Station is located at the South Pole, it is at the only place on the land surface of the Earth where the sun is continuously up for six months and then continuously down for six months. (The only other such place is at the North Pole, on the sea ice in the middle of the Arctic Ocean.) Thus, during each year, this station experiences one extremely long "day" and one extremely long "night". During the six-month "day", the angle of elevation of the Sun above the horizon varies continuously. The sun rises on the vernal equinox, reaches its maximum angle above the horizon on the summer solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, around 20 December, and sets on the autumnal equinox.
During the six-month "night", it gets extremely cold at the South Pole, with air temperatures sometimes dropping below −73 °C (−100 °F). This is also the time of the year when blizzards, sometimes with gale-force winds, strike the Amundsen-Scott Station. The continuous period of darkness and dry atmosphere make the station an excellent place from which to make astronomical observations.

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