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24 hours of sunlight — life and aerospace research in Antarctica

Touchdown after a long and loud flight!


Headline Photo: (From left) Jackson Jandreau, Xinzhao Chu, Amanda Steckel; touchdown after a long and loud flight!
Above: Penguins really do just waddle around and slide on their bellies.

Greetings from Antarctica!

I can’t believe I am living and learning in one of the coolest (literally coldest) places on the planet. It is also one of the ugliest and simultaneously most beautiful. 50 acres of muddy ground and metal buildings, contrastingly surrounded by the breathtakingly beautiful frozen Ross Island.

I arrived here in December as a University of Colorado Boulder aerospace PhD student and Smead Scholar working under professor Dr. Xinzhao Chu. She has been conducting research in Antarctica for years using two sophisticated lidar systems to do remote sensing of the upper atmosphere.

Making the Trip

Early explorers spent months of sea travel aboard steam vessels to do their science. In contrast, my colleague Amanda Steckel, Dr. Chu, and I flew here from Denver International in only about 24 hours. Our flights took us through Los Angeles, Auckland, and eventually to Christchurch, New Zealand, home of the US Antarctic Program (USAP) gateway to McMurdo Station.

At USAP we were issued our trademark red parkas, massively clunky “bunny boots”, and other extreme weather gear.

The next morning, we boarded a C130 aircraft headed straight to McMurdo on a very long, loud (and crowded) flight.

Life at the Bottom of the World

The living situation down here is pretty nice, considering you’re at the bottom of the world! Conditions have definitely improved a lot since the days when Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton slept out in tents and sleeping bags.

All of us in the Lidar group are housed in the same dorm, a three-story building of suites with two per room.


The bed we saw inside Discovery Hut, built in 1902, vs. the accommodations we sleep in today.