Every year in the summer as the sea ice melts, it is pushed up against the permanent ice shelf due to tidal forces. When this happens, the pressure from this force cracks the ice into ridges near Scott Base. Last night, I was lucky enough to walk through the pressure ridges that are formed this way with a group from the Long Duration Balloon Facility. We saw beautiful ice formations, Weddell Seals (including one that had just given birth) and melt ponds. Please see the slideshow above for the new phrase I'm coining, "Make like a seal."  Words cannot describe the scenery, so just enjoy the slideshow!

TAGS:STO-2, ANTARCTICA, MCMURDO, ASTRONOMY, ASTROPHYSICS, BALLOONING

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jenna Kloosterman, NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow

  Jenna Kloosterman is a NASA postdoctoral program fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, researching new instruments for radio astronomy. For the past two years, she has worked on the Stratospheric Terahertz Observatory II, or STO-2, a balloon-born observatory designed to study how stars are born. During the Antarctic summer of 2011-2012, she spent 10 weeks at McMurdo Station for STO’s first flight and returns in November 2015 for a second. She earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, and both a master’s degree in astronomy and a doctorate in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Arizona. Outside of work, she enjoys yoga, hiking, and modern dance, as well as serving as co-chair of the Caltech Postdoc Association.