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Virtual tour - CARA buildings.

Welcome to the Dark Sector.

CARA's scientific instruments are all over here, half a kilometer away from where people live, in order to make sure that there is no light pollution (visible or infrared [heat]) contaminating their observations. This is why it's called the Dark Sector, because there's no excess light.

The banner image from our main home page is a view of the Dark Sector.

The path from the dome (behind you in this shot) to the Dark Sector. The person is Al Fowler walking toward us, towards the Dome. Photo: CARA/D. Harper

CARA's science falls into broad categories roughly by wavelength: microwave (specifically cosmic microwave background radiation), submillimeter, and infrared/visible. Most of the astronomical instruments are controlled from within the MAPO building. AST/RO (the main submillimeter experiment) has its own building. All projects also also collect data on site characterization; there are a few instruments devoted exclusively to site testing (e.g. they don't do any astrophysics). Many of those instruments are clustered in the AASTO building.

Click on the image to learn more about the region:

The links to continue the virtual tour from this page are MAPO, submillimeter, microwave, infrared/visible, and AASTO.

The path from the Dark Sector (behind you in this shot) back to the dome and the South Pole Proper. Photo: CARA/D. Harper

Go back to the map of the pole.

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