Category Archives: Uncategorized

Follow the progress of the team as they prepare to launch SPIDER. Watch via live-streaming here.

Last week was an eventful one for SPIDER, myself, and for the Long Duration Balloon (LDB) facility here in Antarctica. The first launch of the season happened this Thursday, with a beautiful launch of the first of the three balloon-borne … Continue reading →

It’s been an exciting week here on the Ice. The other two experiments here with us, ANITA and COSI, have declared themselves ‘flight ready’ and gone through compatibility testing with a hang test on the launch vehicle. That means the … Continue reading →

Although this may be a harsh continent, I can’t exactly pretend that my lifestyle down here has been difficult or uncomfortable.  I spend most of my day in a heated and well-equipped lab space.  I live in a dormitory with … Continue reading →

Zigmund Kermish is an associate research scholar at Princeton University. To ship SPIDER to Antarctica, where it will be attached to a balloon and floated over the icy continent to search for signals from the early Universe, the researchers had … Continue reading →

Jeff Filippini is a postdoctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology. In the SPIDER team this year we have a lot to be thankful for.  The major parts of our payload are assembled.  Our cryostat is cold and performing reasonably well.  All … Continue reading →

Zigmund Kermish is an associate research scholar at Princeton University. He blogs here. I realized I’ve not yet written a blog post explaining why my experiment is in Antarctica. Things are temporarily quiet on the Ice while we’ve been waiting … Continue reading →

Anne Gambrel is a graduate student in the Department of Physics at Princeton University. She blogs at SPIDER on the Ice. Nov. 26, 2015. This week started off with the very important and always somewhat nerve-racking step of moving Theo … Continue reading →

SPIDER is designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the afterglow of the Big Bang. With SPIDER closed up and cooling toward its operating temperature, it’s a good time for a quick look at the telescopes … Continue reading →

Working on SPIDER for the last 6 years has allowed for some nice photo opportunities. Here, I look back at some of the more memorable photos from the the years past.