Aerial View

NASA's IceBridge mission recently flew over the South Pole and took this cool aerial shot.

I'm reposting it here with with descriptions:

In the upper-left you can see the "dark sector", which is home to the South Pole Telescope, Ice Cube Laboratory, and MAPO/SPUD (which is another telescope and a machine shop). South Pole Station is to the center, and you can see the three berthing units and gym extending from the station. To the upper-right of the station is the NOAA building, situated in the "clean air sector" (wind primarily comes from this direction). Below the station is "the berms" which is the storage/junkyard/graveyard of the South Pole. Below that is the RF sector, housing the satellite dishes that provide internet and transmit our science data. The "end of the world" is an emergency cache of fuel. 

I think a lot of people imagine a single station with a couple outbuildings surrounded by pristine snow, but the bird's eye view shows a different story. Things rarely leave this place once they are here, and therefore a large collection of junk has accumulated from old projects and past construction projects. 

The shot was taken just a day or two ago, so you can still see the Basler planes in the photo.