Pressure on Budget Triggers Review of Antarctic Program

摘要

This month, under the brilliant 24-hour-a-day sunlight of high summer, a team of physicists at the U.S. South Pole station is drilling half a dozen holes deep into the ice as part of an experiment to flag down elusive cosmic neutrinos. Not far away, astronomers are peering into the cosmos with newly installed infrared and millimeter-wave telescopes that take advantage of the pole's high, dry, frigid environment. Other areas around the base are also a buzz of activity, as geophysicists, atmospheric scientists, and geologists probe the workings of Earth and its plimate, both ancient and modem.