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Comment by wanderingstan | Hacker News Reader

The IceCube observatory is incredible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IceCube_Neutrino_Observatory

Incredible to image a square kilometer of pure ice transformed into a sensor to detect rare subatomic particles!

That's the kind of thing where I can't even imagine how the project conceivers and directors can even have the creativity and chutzpah to envision a $300 million dollar lab made by boring dozens of tubes 2 kilometers into the south pole to create a giant cubic kilometer of sensors.

Obviously I'm glad such people exist.

I believe these folks saw $300MM as a modest and cost effective ask given what the usual table stakes are in particle physics.

They want to build an even bigger one, apparently the ice is more clear than expected so they think they can get away with wider spacing:

https://icecube.wisc.edu/science/beyond/

> IceCube-Gen2, a ten-cubic-kilometer detector

> The incredible clarity of the Antarctic glacier, revealed by the construction and operation of IceCube, will allow the spacing between light sensors to exceed 250 meters, instead of the current 125 meters in IceCube. The deployment of sensors on strings with larger spacings will enable the IceCube-Gen2 instrumented volume to rapidly grow at modest costs.

And nuclear weapons detection, whether testing or military use.

<https://www.wired.com/story/neutrino-detectors-could-be-used...>

There are precedents for this. ANTARES and DUMAND both used similar approaches although they used strings in the Mediterranean and Pacific. I suppose using ice makes things easier in that you don't have to worry about sealife and ocean currents but the logistics are going to be a lot tougher and there's probably more ambient light to worry about.

I worked with a former SW technical coordinator who came right from IceCube. The software that runs their analysis and stuff like that is insane. Many, many terabytes of data to crunch. It's very cool stuff

I did an internship with the Amanda (Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array) project - IceCubes "Pathfinder" - in the mid-1990s, and found it one of the most rewarding experiences in my life. There are over 30 years of work from hundreds of people in this project, and to see how it has really made it from "madcap folly" to "a new lens to the universe" gives me the shivers. Hat's off to them.

It's a truly impressive project. Glad to hear your experience there was also a good one.

Also on a massive scale, there's the Pierre Auger cosmic ray observatory. It covers an area about the size of Rhode Island.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Auger_Observatory

The Telescope in the Ice was an enjoyable read.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33573932-the-telescope-i...

This is like something out of a sci-fi plot, this is so cool! (Pun maybe intended).

and here I was wondering how he could make time for this and still be touring all the time

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