Is the Canadian Arctic the Future of Astronomy?

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Is the Canadian Arctic the Future of Astronomy?

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday January 5, 2012 @10:35PM from the planets-and-poutine dept.

sciencehabit writes "Frigid temperatures, dry air, and endless nights should, in theory, make the polar regions top spots for ground-based optical astronomy. So far, Antarctica has been getting all the action, with a handful of optical telescopes peering into the sky from the icy continent. But a new study indicates that the Canadian high Arctic is also a good spot for ground-based optical astronomy. In fact, the great white north offers some practical advantages over the Antarctic."

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Firstly... by smi.james.th · 2012-01-05 22:43 · Score: 4, Interesting

To begin with, it'd probably be easier to get there.
Disclaimer: I've never so much as been to Canada so I don't know what it's like in the polar region there, but I'd imagine that the lack of a huge southwards plane / boat voyage would be an immediate bonus over Antarctica.
Probably be easier to get internet and other communication up there as well.

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1. Re:Firstly... by kahless62003 · 2012-01-05 22:51 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Secondly... the annoying light pollution you get from the aurora borealis.
2. Re:Firstly... by danny_lehman · 2012-01-05 23:05 · Score: 2
  
  I think its in Nunavut. the article mentions PEARL being on the 80th parallel - which is way up in Ellesmere island's neck of the woods. agreed, communication probably by satellite/radio - theres only a couple cell towers in Nunavut at the moment - owned by Lynx Mobility
3. Re:Firstly... by MichaelSmith · 2012-01-05 23:07 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Its possible to put a telescope at the south spin pole because of the base there, and that is a long way from the south magnetic pole, which attracts the aurora. The northern spin pole is in ice over water and the northern magnetic pole is IIRC in Canada, so maybe this means a telescope in Canada would see more of the aurora.
  
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4. Re:Firstly... by Mashiki · 2012-01-05 23:37 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  To be perfectly honest? The difference between the antarctic and arctic is...land travel. So it is easier. In the summer, you can get around by short carrier craft jumps and ship hopping. In the winter, you can drive trucks from point to point. It gets cold there, I've had friends stationed in Resolute, AKA the asshole of Canada. As for communication? Hah no. Emergencies are handled by sat phones. Major outpost cities are done by uplinks via satellite too. There's too much of an issue with the frost/freeze cycle in the spring to drop down landlines.
  And well, if it becomes big enough, and important enough. The government may, eventually, possibly decide to drop in a rail link. But don't hold your breath, otherwise they'll simply sub in plane drops like we do for other remote cities. But that's it. If you live in the middle of nowhere Canada, you're on your own. I've been there.
  
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5. Re:Firstly... by burisch_research · 2012-01-06 00:06 · Score: 2
  
  You insensitive clod! I live in the Southern Hemisphere, way way South. It's much easier to get to the ANTarctic.
  
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6. Re:Firstly... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-06 00:22 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  I dont' have the exact location, but the approximate site is on western Ellesmere Island, near 80degN, 86deg 25'W, just west of Eureka. I've been to Eureka, which is mainly a weather station on the north side of Slidre Fiord, right on the coastline (if you move east along the shore in Google Maps you'll see it). It has a nice airstrip up the hill that Hercules and other large military aircraft can land at. In the fall (usually September) the base gets resupplied by an icebreaker, so theoretically it is possible to steam all the way up there with a big instrument and offload it, and then move it by road. The PEARL station is a 15km drive to the west from there. It's quite pleasant at Eureka in the summertime (up to 15C). In the winter, well, I wouldn't want to be there, but 24 hours of darkness and bitter cold is probably good for astronomy, and it is much more accessible than the Antarctic pole. Although it wouldn't get continual coverage all the way to the horizon, at 80 degrees north you could still track a target 24 hours a day over most of the northern sky in winter.
  People are right that building on permafrost is a challenge, but one that is probably a lot easier than building on ice. Likewise, yes, communication would have to be by satellite, but that's true in Antarctica too. On the whole this is indeed a much more accessible location.
7. Re:Firstly... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-06 00:51 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Nunuvut is actually fairly close to the current location of the north magnetic pole. This can be annoying (as in Aurora Borealis light pollution) or useful (cosmic ray telescopes). I just noticed that google maps only covers up to 85 degrees latitude. How many school kids are getting a distorted view that the earth stops there? What are the spy satellites not showing us in that 300 mile wide band between 85 north and the north pole, Santa?
8. Re:Firstly... by Eunuchswear · 2012-01-06 02:07 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  If you're using Mercator you're not really into maps.
  http://xkcd.com/977/
  
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9. Re:Firstly... by PhotoJim · 2012-01-06 03:03 · Score: 2
  
  Indeed, and Canada has tons of its own infrastructure. You can drive to the Arctic, and scheduled airline flights get to many points up there as well.
  Now, the parts of the Arctic that are being considered here may not have roads to them, but it is still a relatively easy jaunt to them from ports in eastern Canada and the northeastern USA. It might be easy to get from Tierra del Fuego to Antarctica by boat, but you still have a lot of overland schlepping that you wouldn't have to the same degree in Arctic Canada.
  Also, simply thinking practically, at the South Pole half the heavens are inaccessible. This is true at the North Pole too, but the visible regions of the sky are complementary.
fiber by spectrokid · 2012-01-05 22:47 · Score: 3, Insightful

Telescopes generate huges amount of data. Fiber to the south pole must not be cheap.

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1. Re:fiber by Prof.Phreak · 2012-01-06 01:39 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Never underestimate a ship packed with hard-drives... or something. Oftentimes FedEx-ing data is cheaper AND faster.
  
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Re:alaska anyone? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-05 22:49 · Score: 2, Funny

alaska anyone?

It's hard to believe the US can be the future of any scientific endeavour.
If you use one pole you need to use the other by MichaelSmith · 2012-01-05 22:54 · Score: 4, Insightful

Or use a site at the equator. Its useless arguing between north and south poles. Each can only see half the sky.

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1. Re:If you use one pole you need to use the other by GauteL · 2012-01-05 23:08 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  "Or use a site at the equator. Its useless arguing between north and south poles. Each can only see half the sky."
  This depends on what you're after. Having only half of a near limitless supply of information may not be a problem to you, as long as you can make the reasonable assumption that the two halves are statistically representative of the other.
  A bigger problem may be that just as they both have one very long winter night, they also one very long summer day (clearly neither are endless).
2. Re:If you use one pole you need to use the other by necro81 · 2012-01-06 01:49 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yes, but you can only see the night sky for about half of each day. When you take away twilight, you are down to perhaps 6-8 hours of observation time per night. With that kind of cycling, you get a lot of diurnal temperature variation, both in your equipment and in the air you are looking through. And while an equatorial site can see more of the sky over the course of a year, it can't see all of it equally well. To see the celestial poles, you would need to point your scope more or less at the horizon, which means looking through a whole lot of atmosphere. There aren't all that many high and dry places near the equator, and while interior Antarctica is a relatively stable air mass, the tropics are raging atmospheric torrents by comparison.
  
  In contrast, telescopes at the south pole can have days or weeks of continuous observation with very stable temperatures. And while it is true that the south pole has whole months where no observation is possible, the long stretch of continuous observation makes up for it. If it wasn't worthwhile, astronomers and the NSF wouldn't have gone through all the headaches and difficulty to do it.
  
  It doesn't need to be an either/or situation. There are lots of good places to put scopes, and lots of good reasons for each site. There's a large untapped potential of semi-equitorial sites in the Southern Sahara, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, and the Arabian Peninsula. But in some ways Antarctica is logistically and politically easier.
In Canada, wouldn't there a glaring lack of... by Mister+Liberty · 2012-01-05 23:08 · Score: 4, Insightful

southern sky?
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1. Re:In Canada, wouldn't there a glaring lack of... by Attila+Dimedici · 2012-01-06 01:06 · Score: 2
  
  And that would be a greater problem than the lack of northern sky that one might observe in Antarctica for what reason?
  
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Advantages and drawbacks by Framboise · 2012-01-05 23:37 · Score: 3, Interesting

For optical astronomy (that is in visible, near-infrared light) the long winter nights are good for observing objects continuously 24/24 as long as non-cloudy sky permits.
Of course the converse occurs in summer when darkness doesn't exist for months.
Polar auroras are also a nuisance.
Re:alaska anyone? by mister_playboy · 2012-01-06 00:11 · Score: 3, Informative

Do you have a globe? Alaska isn't close enough to the pole for the desired purpose.

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Re:melting permafrost by Rei · 2012-01-06 00:20 · Score: 4, Interesting

Yeah, Antarctic buildings generally slowly sink/get buried; it's a big challenge. Bedrock is best.
I'm surprised that Iceland isn't more utilized. It's a first-world nation, the north/northeast has lots of areas that are borderline desert, it's pretty far north (Fairbanks-ish, further north than Yellowknife), the whole country is well connected by an excellent road system (except for parts of Vestfirðir), there's a very low population density (and thus low light pollution outside the capitol region), a huge amount of aluminum production (it's one of the main exports), and electrical power is abundant and cheap. Sounds like a good site for building large high-latitude telescopes, IMHO.

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Re:Two Things... by laejoh · 2012-01-06 00:24 · Score: 2

Thank $diety a new breed of scientists has emerged!
No way! by Troyusrex · 2012-01-06 00:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

This is a silly suggestion. The future of astronomy is not in Canada but in space...
Aurora location by dtmos · 2012-01-06 00:51 · Score: 5, Informative

Aurora occur in rings centered on the magnetic poles, not at the magnetic poles themselves. As activity intensifies, the radius of these rings increases, in parallel with lines of geomagnetic latitude, but even in periods of very low solar activity their radius never goes to near zero -- meaning, there are few aurora near the magnetic poles themselves.
Scientists can finally smash the stereotypes by antifoidulus · 2012-01-06 00:56 · Score: 3, Funny

In addition to the scientific benefits, scientists can also finally put to rest the stereotype that nerds are weaklings. Since they will have nothing else to do during downtime, they can prove how manly they are through engaging in polar bear combat and then blogging about how to prepare and eat polar bear steaks. Nothing manlier.

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Re:top of mount everest by gblackwo · 2012-01-06 02:45 · Score: 2

I see no reason why you couldn't have airlocks with a somewhat fancier HVAC system. Yes, similar to an airplane you would be compressing external air adiabatically, but you probably wouldn't need to cool it off, in fact it may need some additional heating after compression to be livable.

The pressure differential would not be outrageous, so the structure would not need too much special engineering. If the RCA dome in Indianapolis could pull it off, I don't see why a small observatory couldn't. The atmosphere would be very normal, and not airplane like.
Ice and Snow? Polar Bears? by DarthVain · 2012-01-06 05:09 · Score: 2

Um wouldn't one of the obvious problems be the build up of ice and snow and the necessity of its removal constantly?
also
Day 215: "Trapped in Telescope again. Polar bears are circling like sharks. Loyd and Weber are gone.I don't know how much longer I can hold out."
Day 216: "Discovered another exoplanet. Tentatively named it Ursa Polaris Pallas Meas Lambe 12."
Day 217: "Another supply air drop came today. Bears ate it. Played with the rest. They are just taunting me now."
Re:alaska anyone? by tgd · 2012-01-06 05:38 · Score: 2

Do you have a globe? Alaska isn't close enough to the pole for the desired purpose.
This is the US, we haven't been able to afford globes for classrooms since the '60s.
Re:alaska anyone? by Existential+Wombat · 2012-01-06 06:23 · Score: 3, Funny

Actually, globes are not provided, for fear of upsetting those who believe the Earth is flat.