Fabio Del Sordo edited untitled.tex  about 9 years ago

Commit id: c4e5458ed3d0ed473a9d794e3ecbe992a67275ce

deletions | additions      

       

\textit{Authorea fellow and Yale scientist Fabio Del Sordo went for the adventure of a lifetime. Chasing one of the most inaccessible solar eclipses of the century, he went to Svalbard, a group of remote arctic islands midway between continental Norway and the North Pole.}  Some months, during a chat with a fellow astrophysicist, I realized 2015 would have been a quite busy year for me, due to a combination of science projects, outreach with the \href{http://constellationproject.org}{GalileoMobile Constellation} and other travels. At that time I had recently started a postdoc at Yale, in the research group led by John Wettlaufer, \href{http://users.math.yale.edu/users/wettlaufer/John_Wettlaufer/JSW.html}{John Wettlaufer},  an expert on sea ice and the Arctic. Since many years I felt the urge of visiting the northernmost area of the Earth, and I started fulfilling this need during my PhD in Stockholm, with travels to Lapland and the north western Norvegian coastine. The Arctic, though, is a different story and, at that time, was nothing else than  a vague but intriguing place, oftentimes feeding my imagination. During this postdoc, I thought, I will have to visit Svalbard, connecting my travel to a research project. the The  idea behind any research I start is pretty much always the same: I study it because it fascinates me. The me, and the  Arctic is full of phenomena that I cannot see how  they could not trigger a deep interest. The sea ice, constantly freezing and melting, harbors amazing things like frozen flowers, \href{http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2014/04/frost-flower-garden.html}{frost flowers},  as well as life in extreme conditions; the upper atmosphere hosts spectacles like Northern Lights. Nevertheless, I am almost unable to organize a journey in absence of an initial spark deciding when this is going to happen. In this case, the fire was lit during the chat I was mentioned. “I would like to travel to Svalbard sooner or later” - I said. “For the Eclipse, you mean?” “WoW, is there an eclipse at Svalbard? For real?”