Cosmos
Curated content from the editorial staff at Cosmos Magazine.
For six months of the year the South Pole is the perfect place for stargazing: darkness around the clock, no light pollution from irritating human settlements, and high altitude and freezing air combined mean a thin, crisp atmosphere with little distorting water vapour.
That’s why the South Pole Telescope was built there in 2006, near the American research base at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The 10-metre reflecting telescope observes the heavens in various frequencies of infrared radiation, paying particular attention to the cosmic microwave background, the dim all-pervasive afterglow of the big bang.
In this picture, the telescope can be seen during the long Antarctic night as the aurora australis, or southern lights, stream overhead.
