[HN Gopher] Sunset at the South Pole
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Sunset at the South Pole
Author : calcifer
Score : 273 points
Date : 2023-04-09 08:49 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (brr.fyi)
(TXT) w3m dump (brr.fyi)
| 7373737373 wrote:
| > 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/
| joshvm wrote:
| One 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.
| im_down_w_otp wrote:
| The 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 wrote:
| What 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.
| joshvm wrote:
| Most of the main station (exterior) doors are walk-in style.
| The same goes for most of the scientific outbuildings. A lot
| of the smaller outbuildings, like the climbing gym, have
| relatively "normal" doors.
|
| There is a lot of wood construction, because it insulates
| well, it's light (extremely important for cheap
| construction), there's no moisture to speak of, and it's
| easily repaired. A lot of the walls are wood with a ton of
| insulation and metal cladding [0]. The windows are beefy,
| though weirdly they were designed in with metal frames which
| I imagine leak a lot of heat. Most of the interior
| construction feels somewhere between a corporate and a
| university space. It was built by government and defense
| contractors, so there is also a bit of a barracks feeling
| about it too.
|
| [0] https://www.southpolestation.com/polefeb1.jpg
| el_benhameen wrote:
| As luck would have it, there's this article for those
| interested in the doors: https://brr.fyi/posts/doors-of-
| mcmurdo
| belter wrote:
| They have ATM's...looks like a practical joke...
| https://brr.fyi/posts/mcmurdo-automated-teller-machines
| ghaff wrote:
| I 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.
| bombcar wrote:
| https://fiscal.treasury.gov/navy-cash/
|
| Apparently they also have advances against pay as cash,
| or did in the past.
| joshvm wrote:
| McMurdo has them, but the general store accepts cards. I
| don't think the bars accept cards and tipping for
| volunteer services (e.g. barristas) is quite common. Pole
| does not (it's cash only). And then there's Palmer which
| is card only. Most contractors can "widthdraw" money out
| of their paychecks to get a periodic stipend while
| they're down there, otherwise you have to take out a big
| wad in McM to last the summer/winter (e.g. scientists
| usually can't because we're paid by universities, not
| USAP).
| mhb wrote:
| Was hoping that the green flash was stretched out there.
| gooseyman wrote:
| The 5 day time lapse photo is awesome. How did it get taken such
| that it followed the sun perfectly and without freezing?
| veleek wrote:
| I assumed it was just a 360 camera, but I have no idea how they
| kept it unfrozen.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| Incredible 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 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| If 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.
| tambourine_man wrote:
| Always dreamt of seeing this. Don't know if I would stand the
| cold, but it must be incredible.
| kendallpark wrote:
| The 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.
| foobarbecue wrote:
| It's a dry cold. You'd be fine!
| mlindner wrote:
| There's no such thing as too cold, only incorrect clothing. If
| you have sufficient clothing you can be quite warm at any
| temperature.
| sharkweek wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| You can get infinitely hot but only so cold. Curse you
| thermodynamics!
| Etheryte wrote:
| I'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 wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| Well, 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.
| wcoenen wrote:
| There 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-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.
| joshvm wrote:
| I'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 wrote:
| Can you explain how physiological altitude works? I've
| never heard of it.
| euroderf wrote:
| Sort of like an Arrakeen stillsuit but for heat.
| Jun8 wrote:
| Great 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 (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 wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_Days_of_Night
| SoftTalker wrote:
| The vampire may be hungry though. Not too many people living in
| polar night regions, compared to more central lattitudes.
|
| As for the ants idea, introducing a species where it doesn't
| exist is usually a Bad Thing (TM).
| aflag wrote:
| Doesn'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 wrote:
| No. That's literally what the article is about.
| telesilla wrote:
| Sam Raimi made quite a good version of 30 Days of Night
|
| https://youtu.be/8ClVrVK_y0E
| ghotli wrote:
| Best blog on the internet. I hope the author sees this, I've
| enjoyed every post the whole time through.
| beebeepka wrote:
| Antarctica... 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.
| sharkweek wrote:
| To 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 wrote:
| From 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 wrote:
| This. 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 wrote:
| The 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.
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| Welcome 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.
| GalenErso wrote:
| The pictures are beautiful. But I don't see the old geodesic
| dome. Is it safe? Is it alright?
| cozzyd wrote:
| It's long gone and buried under ice
| DylanSp wrote:
| Wikipedia mentions that the dome was dismantled in 2010.
| roboben wrote:
| Not showing a picture of the main dish. How brutal!
| ianzakalwe wrote:
| My new favourite blog to read online!
| dylan604 wrote:
| the 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
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > 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
| bombcar wrote:
| Wasn't there an Asimov story with a similar twist? The
| scientists discovered that there was a rare point where all
| three stars would set and drive everyone mad.
| dgoodell wrote:
| Yes, it was "Nightfall".
| chewbacha wrote:
| Like Uranus? It's completely on its side.
| dylan604 wrote:
| exactly. 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
| iambateman wrote:
| When 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.
| heywhatupboys wrote:
| why is there an american flag planted there?
| haunter wrote:
| Because 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_Antarctic...
| mlindner wrote:
| Fun 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 wrote:
| Note the last bit with the weather report:
| 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...
| is a log chart for y and doesn't have many minor ticks for X
| ... I want to say it's closer to -83 degC. It's significant
| enough that you'd notice (if you were to go outside).
| jcranmer wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| It 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-...
| NKosmatos wrote:
| It'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 :-)
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