Two of the biggest experiments at the South Pole relate to astrophysics and would rank as major projects anywhere in the world. One is a $19.2 million telescope, run by the University of Chicago, that is looking into dark energy by locating the biggest structures in the universe, distant clusters of galaxies formed billions of years ago.
The other, called Ice Cube, involves freezing thousands of delicate sensors into the ancient, crystal-clear ice thousands of feet beneath the pole in a cube configuration 1 kilometer long on each side. The goal of the $280 million project, led by the University of Wisconsin, is to capture one of the smallest and most elusive things in the universe, subatomic neutrino particles.