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A comment on Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Francis Halzen. Parent comment

Re:Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Francis Halzen by mr_mitm on Tuesday October 06, 2026 @07:53AM (#49977133)
Where else would you go look for a cubic km of ice?
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Re:Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Francis Halzen by erk__ on Tuesday October 06, 2026 @08:12AM (#49977299)
Greenland, though that is probably not much better in any measurable way, when it comes to transport.
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Re:Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Francis Halzen by walrus01 on Tuesday October 06, 2026 @08:48AM (#49977621)
Another option that's been popular is to get it as deep underground as possible, hard rock mines with empty areas:

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SNO+

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-Kamiokande

There's a weird overlap in engineering and physics disciplines between the hard engineering/business practices of the mining industry, and particle physics.

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Re:Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Francis Halzen by trebligdivad on Tuesday October 06, 2026 @09:18AM (#49978007)
Right, but for those they need to make/move/collect a large amount of transparent material, like heavy water etc for the particles to interact with. But they get that 'for free' with the ice.
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Re:Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Francis Halzen by agos on Tuesday October 06, 2026 @11:09AM (#49979653)
and another option is putting it in the sea, see KM3NeT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KM3NeT
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Re:Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Francis Halzen by bananasbandanas on Tuesday October 06, 2026 @09:13AM (#49977955)
Logistics is much easier for Greenland, but the optical properties of the ice are not as good as at the south pole.
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Re:Nobel Prize in Physics goes to Francis Halzen by cozzyd on Tuesday October 06, 2026 @02:20PM (#49982133)
Greenland is much better logistically in some ways (I work on experiments both in Greenland and in Antarctica), but the ice in Greenland is unlikely to be as good for IceCube as in Antarctica, due to a presumed larger number of dust layers from dry periods in Europe.

The US has a research station at Summit Station Greenland but compared to South Pole, it's spartan (like, the first time I went there, I slept in a tent because of lack of hard-sided berthing, but then a Polar bear came a few years later and now hard-sided berthing is required). There are longer-term plans to improve the station in Greenland but we'll see.

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