MONROE - Jerry W. Marty, a 1964 Monroe High School graduate and 1969 University of Wisconsin-Platteville graduate, has spent the last 15 years working at the South Pole, Antarctica, while employed by the National Science Foundation (NSF), a federal agency located in Arlington, Va. His official duty during the South Pole assignments, which were normally 31⁄2 months at a time during the summer season, was as the U.S. Government representative for the construction project management of a new South Pole scientific research facility and two large scientific research projects.
One of those recently completed scientific research projects is a massive scientific telescope called The IceCube Neutrino Observatory (or simply IceCube) that fills a cubic kilometer of deep Antarctic ice. The IceCube detector within the cubic kilometer of ice now contains 5,160 computerized optical detectors called Digital Optical Modules (or DOMs). The DOMs are placed on 86 cables (called strings) which are embedded into holes melted in the ice using a hot water drill and deployed at depths ranging from 1,450 to 2,450 meters. The study of the data from the IceCube observatory involves more than 250 scientists from 36 institutions in the U.S. and around the world. The primary funding for this $272 million project is by the NSF, supplemented with international funding by partners in Sweden, Belgium, and Germany. UW-Madison is the lead scientific research institution on the project.
Marty's contributions to the success of the IceCube project have been recognized by having one of the 5,160 DOMs named Jerry Marty, which now resides in perpetuity 2 kilometers below the ice surface at the geographic South Pole.
Marty's NSF project participation has included project management, design, logistics, and construction engineering.
Building IceCube in one of the most remote locations on Earth comes with a special set of challenges. All project personnel, equipment, food, construction materials, and scientific instrumentation had to be transported to Antarctica via ship, and then flown in ski-equipped C-130 cargo aircraft from McMurdo Station near the Antarctic coast to the South Pole, more than 800 air miles away.
During the past 15 years, he spent the northern hemisphere summers, March through September (Austral Winter in Antarctica), involved with project planning in Washington, D.C. (NSF) and UW-Madison. During the Austral Summer seasons (November through January), he was deployed on-site at the South Pole where he was involved with constructing the observatory and working at 10,000 feet above sea level. The average summer temperature is -18 F; with a wind-chill which can reach -50 F. There is permanent sunlight for 24 hours each day.
During the Austral Summer season, the station population reached 350 and was housed in the newly constructed South Pole scientific research facility designed to support 150 people, the overflow housed in Korean War Quonset-type surface fabric structures called Jamesways. Marty lived in both types of accommodations, depending on housing availability upon his arrival at the South Pole station.
Marty said IceCube provides an innovative means to investigate the properties of fundamental particles that originate in some of the most spectacular phenomena in the universe. The DOMs look down into the Earth for a novel astronomical messenger called a neutrino - a subatomic particle emanating from the most violent astrophysical sources such as exploding stars, gamma ray bursts, and cataclysmic phenomena involving black holes and neutron stars. Specifically at these depths, it is dark and optically ultra transparent, allowing the DOMs to record the traces of particles from tiny flashes of blue light, called Cherenkov radiation, emitted after a high-energy neutrino strikes one of the water atoms in the ice.
Some neutrinos come from the sun, (10 billion pass through a human thumb each second) while others come from cosmic rays interacting with the Earth's atmosphere, and still others are produced by dramatic astronomical sources such as exploding stars in the Milky Way and distant galaxies. Marty said ever since neutrinos were discovered in 1956, scientists have hoped to decipher the information these astronomical messengers carry about distant cosmic events, but they rarely interact with regular matter.
Marty made his first trip to Antarctica in 1969 working with the United States Antarctic Research Program and was assigned to Byrd Station. All together, he has spent more than 5 years of his life working on the Antarctic ice.
Marty's other awards include:
- Recognition for Antarctic career service to country by the U.S. Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin on June 18, 2009.
- Featured in the National Geographic documentary -"Man Made Structures", about the construction of the new South Pole Station scientific research facility, 2008.
- Antarctic feature named Marty Nunataks (a group of six mountain peaks): USGS recognition of his Antarctic contributions. 1998.
- University of Wisconsin-Platteville: Distinguished Alumnus for 1995.
Jerry and his wife Elena reside in Long Beach, California. He has two siblings: Judy Siegel, Madison; and Karen Rule, Monroe.
One of those recently completed scientific research projects is a massive scientific telescope called The IceCube Neutrino Observatory (or simply IceCube) that fills a cubic kilometer of deep Antarctic ice. The IceCube detector within the cubic kilometer of ice now contains 5,160 computerized optical detectors called Digital Optical Modules (or DOMs). The DOMs are placed on 86 cables (called strings) which are embedded into holes melted in the ice using a hot water drill and deployed at depths ranging from 1,450 to 2,450 meters. The study of the data from the IceCube observatory involves more than 250 scientists from 36 institutions in the U.S. and around the world. The primary funding for this $272 million project is by the NSF, supplemented with international funding by partners in Sweden, Belgium, and Germany. UW-Madison is the lead scientific research institution on the project.
Marty's contributions to the success of the IceCube project have been recognized by having one of the 5,160 DOMs named Jerry Marty, which now resides in perpetuity 2 kilometers below the ice surface at the geographic South Pole.
Marty's NSF project participation has included project management, design, logistics, and construction engineering.
Building IceCube in one of the most remote locations on Earth comes with a special set of challenges. All project personnel, equipment, food, construction materials, and scientific instrumentation had to be transported to Antarctica via ship, and then flown in ski-equipped C-130 cargo aircraft from McMurdo Station near the Antarctic coast to the South Pole, more than 800 air miles away.
During the past 15 years, he spent the northern hemisphere summers, March through September (Austral Winter in Antarctica), involved with project planning in Washington, D.C. (NSF) and UW-Madison. During the Austral Summer seasons (November through January), he was deployed on-site at the South Pole where he was involved with constructing the observatory and working at 10,000 feet above sea level. The average summer temperature is -18 F; with a wind-chill which can reach -50 F. There is permanent sunlight for 24 hours each day.
During the Austral Summer season, the station population reached 350 and was housed in the newly constructed South Pole scientific research facility designed to support 150 people, the overflow housed in Korean War Quonset-type surface fabric structures called Jamesways. Marty lived in both types of accommodations, depending on housing availability upon his arrival at the South Pole station.
Marty said IceCube provides an innovative means to investigate the properties of fundamental particles that originate in some of the most spectacular phenomena in the universe. The DOMs look down into the Earth for a novel astronomical messenger called a neutrino - a subatomic particle emanating from the most violent astrophysical sources such as exploding stars, gamma ray bursts, and cataclysmic phenomena involving black holes and neutron stars. Specifically at these depths, it is dark and optically ultra transparent, allowing the DOMs to record the traces of particles from tiny flashes of blue light, called Cherenkov radiation, emitted after a high-energy neutrino strikes one of the water atoms in the ice.
Some neutrinos come from the sun, (10 billion pass through a human thumb each second) while others come from cosmic rays interacting with the Earth's atmosphere, and still others are produced by dramatic astronomical sources such as exploding stars in the Milky Way and distant galaxies. Marty said ever since neutrinos were discovered in 1956, scientists have hoped to decipher the information these astronomical messengers carry about distant cosmic events, but they rarely interact with regular matter.
Marty made his first trip to Antarctica in 1969 working with the United States Antarctic Research Program and was assigned to Byrd Station. All together, he has spent more than 5 years of his life working on the Antarctic ice.
Marty's other awards include:
- Recognition for Antarctic career service to country by the U.S. Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin on June 18, 2009.
- Featured in the National Geographic documentary -"Man Made Structures", about the construction of the new South Pole Station scientific research facility, 2008.
- Antarctic feature named Marty Nunataks (a group of six mountain peaks): USGS recognition of his Antarctic contributions. 1998.
- University of Wisconsin-Platteville: Distinguished Alumnus for 1995.
Jerry and his wife Elena reside in Long Beach, California. He has two siblings: Judy Siegel, Madison; and Karen Rule, Monroe.