Editor's Summary
24 November 2005
Losing sight of the stars
Optical astronomers had high hopes for the Concordia base in Antarctica as a cheaper alternative to space-based telescopes. There is little atmospheric water vapour there to distort the light, it is outside the normal region for aurora and there's little wind, which should avoid a problem found elsewhere in Antarctica, where distortion due to wind turbulence causes bad 'seeing'. But it has not been plain sailing: Concordia has its own type of air turbulence caused by a steep temperature gradient between the snow and the air above it. Can the astronomers rise to this latest challenge?
News Feature: Antarctic astronomy: Seeing in the dark
When darkness falls for Antarctica's long winter months, the sky becomes a spectacular canopy of stars. At one brand new base, astronomers are braving the extreme cold to build telescopes that they hope will rival space observatories. Gabrielle Walker investigates.
doi:10.1038/438414a