Santa and his elves work at the North Pole. David Besson and his assistants will spend Christmas at the South Pole.

Besson, a Kansas University professor of physics and astronomy, will leave today for Antarctica with two undergraduate students and a former KU student. The team of researchers will study space particles hitting the polar ice cap to learn more about the solar system.

“It’s pretty accommodating, except for the fact you’re cold,” Besson said of the South Pole.

It’s summer in Antarctica now, with temperatures hovering around a balmy 20 below zero. It gets to 70 below zero during the winter. The group will be outfitted with winter gear during a stopover in New Zealand.

Besson is making his fifth trip to Antarctica since 1996, when he landed a $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study neutrinos, ultra-high-energy particles that are emitted by bursts in the sky called “gamma ray bursts” or black holes, which are collapsed stars.

KU researchers have placed 16 antennas in the ice. They measure the amount of radiation that occurs when neutrinos hit the ice. It’s easier to measure them in Antarctica because the ice cap is large and uniform.

Neutrinos are rare — Besson estimates one hits a 1-kilometer square area of ice each year.

By understanding the neutrinos, scientists can have a better understanding of how the universe and black holes were formed. Besson admits the research is a bit esoteric.

Joshua Meyers, a Kansas University junior from Wichita, is one of four people with KU connections who will spend Christmas on the South Pole conducting research. The team leaves for Antarctica today.

“The practical value?” he said. “There is none.”

This trip will be used to adjust the antennas and gather data to help develop computer models for predicting neutrinos.

Joshua Meyers, a junior from Wichita, is preparing for his first trip to the South Pole. He said the group would stay in buildings at the South Pole Research Station.

Meyers and Besson will take six flights — totaling 35 hours — to get to Antarctica. They’ll meet up with Jessica Drees, an Overland Park junior studying this semester in New Zealand, and Ilya Kravchenvko, a former KU graduate student now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Meyers said his parents weren’t crazy about the idea of him going on the trip during winter break.

“They have mixed feelings,” he said. “They don’t like that I’ll be gone for Christmas.”

He said he was not sure what type of celebration would occur at the South Pole on Christmas Day, but said he got all his holiday shopping done before he left. He didn’t expect to find any malls on the South Pole for last-minute gifts.

“I don’t know what’s down there,” he said. “Probably not much.”