Emilie with some Arizona State University members of the BLAST team, from left to right: Caleb, Sam, and Adrian.

Happy holidays from McMurdo! We all miss being with our families during this time of year, but the McMurdo staff did a fantastic job of preparing holiday fare for the McMurdo community and guests like us. Being here for the holidays does mean we have the opportunity to meet scientists performing other experiments. One group we have had an opportunity to socialize with is the Long Duration Balloon BLAST group (https://askdrphilastro.wordpress.com/). They hoist detectors high into the atmosphere with balloons to study the role magnetic fields have on influencing star formation in the Milky Way galaxy. If all goes well, in a couple of days we will be collecting meteorites, some of which contain materials formed 4.5 billion years ago. Together, studies of star formation and meteorites provide information about how our galaxy evolves and the Solar System formed.

A group of Adelie penguins we saw on Christmas day!

-Marc and the team from cloudy McMurdo, Antarctica