IceCube
Icecube is a neutrino detector at the South Pole. Its not your typical look through the eye piece at the stars. Its actually a grid built below the surface of the ice. The project starts at 1400 Meters and is a complete 1km by 1km by 1km grid. The holes are formed by a hot water drill which takes 48 hours for a single string. Once the whole is open there are only 11 hours to deploy the string. There is a total of 80 strings each with 60 DOMs or Digital Optical Modules. These DOMs are a series of circuits and computers with LCD flashers on them. The scientists have given each DOM is own individual name.
The DOM’s detect cherenkov radiation that is emitted in the ice when a neutrino collides with the center of an atom. Neutrinos are the most plentiful particle in the universe. Some of the neutrinos are as old as the big bang, 15 Billion years. In fact about 50 Trillion are going through you as you read this! However you are unable to feel them because they have no electrical charge. They also have no stable mass. These qualities make them very unique in that they are not deflected by magnetic fields or absorbed by the earth. It would take a light year of lead to stop a single neutrino.
IceCube is hoping to find out more about these particles and their sources. They are produced in black holes, pulsars, supernova and other objects in outterspace. The ones that IceCube has detected so far are from our sun. Neutrinos can be produced by humans in nuclear reactors and particle accelerators. Many are also found from atmospheric cascades. Another hope of the collaboration is to answer questions about mechanisms that produce Neutrinos and perhaps unveil the mysteries of Dark Matter or Dark Energy. There will no doubt be many more questions set forth to be answered in the future.
This telescope started construction in 2003 and will be finished in 2011. The experiment has already started to collect some data but will run a further 20 years from completion. The DOMs will be in the ice for 25,000 years. IceCube was built in Antactica because of the properites of the ice. At such depths the pressure is so great that all the air bubbles are pushed out. This creates a really good meduim for transmitting the light. It also helps to weed out the scientists who are not keen for a trip to the South Pole 
I’m just starting my research with this great organization. I’ve got two years of study ahead of me and a thesis to write. It will be a lot of hard work but it will be worth it. Hopefully a trip to the pole will be included somewhere in that time period.