Where the Sun Never Sleeps
By Jean Pennycook
In a place where the sun shines 24 hours a day it is only natural that solar energy would find a home. At Cape Royds on Ross Island, Antarctica the sun never goes below the horizon between October and February. It is during this time the Adelie Penguins come ashore to build their nests and raise their chicks.
Funded with a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the research team of Dr David Ainley leaves the warmth of California behind and heads to the cold and isolated Cape Royds Adelie breeding colony to study these remarkable birds. The tools of science require electricity, and generating power the traditional way would create carbon emissions and air pollutants that would compromise the pristine environment of Antarctica. Solar panels are used instead to power the computers, data collectors, cameras, and radios. Solar panels power our Penguin Cam which takes both a wide angle and close-up of the colony every day. Completely powered from the sun’s energy, it goes to sleep when the sun goes down in April and wakes up with the sunrise in September. You can see pictures of the Penguin Cam on our website at www.penguinscience.com and the daily photos at http://thistle.org/pcam/.
The first picture shows our weighbridge computer mechanism which is housed in the tent and identifies individual penguins and weighs them as they come and go from their nesting site. With this data we learn how long they are gone on foraging trips and how much food they bring back to the chicks. In the next picture you see the tent where the researchers work and sleep. These panels keep the communication radios, cameras, and computers charged for the three months Dr. Ainley’s team is in the field. The panels are on a pole that swivels, allowing the researchers to rotate them as the sun moves through the sky.