aitch eee double-hockey sticks

After the mission today (which was our best day, yet) we had some time while we were transferring data for post processing. I took a few pictures of Primrose Lake. I even took one of myself standing on the lake, but I'm not happy with that one so I will have to try again sometime.

As I was taking these lake pictures on this absolutely brilliant day (it was only about 0 to minus 1C when I took these) I was struck by the thought that in the very center of Dante's Inferno is a great frozen lake (Satan is imprisoned in the center of the lake and those who betrayed their benefactors are frozen into the ice).

That was a big surprise when I first read the Inferno, but I never really connected it with frozen lakes like they have in the great white north before. When you are on the lake it is so silent and seems so vast that it is hard to describe.

I learned today that when one of the pallets returned to earth last Wednesday without benefit of parachute and impacted the lake it did not break all the way through the ice, but did break through the top layer into the sludge, or slush we would probably call it. Apparently when lakes freeze like this 3 layers are formed. The top and bottom are solid, thick ice layers while the middle is a wet icy sludge. The 2000 lb pallet apparently found that sludge layer.