NSF Opens New South Pole Station

The new Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station was dedicated on Jan. 12 in a ceremony at the geographic South Pole. The new station is part of the U.S. Antarctic Program that is managed by NSF. "Our purpose is to dedicate a facility that will help us push back the boundaries of the unknown-a quest that has continued year-round at this site for over 50 years," NSF Director Arden L. Bement Jr. said at the ceremony. The dedication comes during the International Polar Year, a concerted scientific field campaign supported by 60 nations to study the planet's poles. The facility, the most technologically and architecturally sophisticated ever built at the site, will support a number of large-scale experiments in disciplines ranging from astrophysics to environmental chemistry to seismology, according to the agency.