Of course, there many way to determine IceCube' birth date. The one that we are choosing to celebrate is the 10th anniversary of the start of the first production data run using all 86 strings. We could also have celebrated the end of deployment of the 86 strings, which happened on December 17, 2020. But, the May date was more convenient; pre-Covid, we had intended to schedule our collaboration meeting around it, and also have a celebratory 'What have we learned' workshop. Alas, the in-person celebration and workshop will have to wait until we can safely travel again.
For those who are interested, many IceCube institutions issued press releases and features. The LBNL story is available here, while the UW Madison release is available here.
Here's to another 10 years, including the IceCube Upgrade and Generation 2! Minus the adolescent angst, of course.
