From Middle Earth to the End

The world seemed to be reflecting my emotions all too perfectly. Campus was uncharacteristically empty. The gray clouds hovered low as the threat of rain was not far off. The foot paths had a few puddles from the showers earlier. The wind blew around a few of the leaves as the first ones fell from the trees. By the time I made it to the road there were a few people driving by going on with their lives. Except I wasn’t sure what to do with mine. GCAS was over. 

GCAS final BBQ

Not sure how it ended so suddenly as the last 2 months went by a break neck speed. I have no good excuse for not writing other than that I was up to my eye balls in neutrino simulations for my final project. It was so full on but totally worth it. I went back in to my physics mind set and worked hard to do the research and write a paper about a telescope called IceCube located at the South Pole. Its used to detect Neutrinos coming in from the atmosphere. Neutrinos are a really really really small particle.  Watch out there are 50 Trillion of them going through you ever second! Don’t worry, they have no electrical charge and no known mass so they very rarely interact and go unnoticed. For my final project I did some simulations and energy reconstructions for different parts of the telescope. Except its not your usual telescope. When its finished in 2011 it will be a 1 km by 1 km by 1 km of 80 stings each with 60 detectors on them. They are drilled into the ice and it is there that the neutrino interactions can be detected in the medium of the ice.  Here I’ve gone again rambling on about IceCube as it is the COOLEST science experiment I know of, no pun intended.  

So that is how I finished up my GCAS project. I was sader than I could have imagined to say goodbye to everyone.  After stiving so hard to get in to this wonderful program, working hard at school and making it to Antarctica, I felt lost as what to do next. That just means I can get started on my next great adventure…….

                                                  Now how can I get back to the Ice??

Some very serious explorers I would go to the end of the world for anytime

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