This one of the most spectacular optical phenomenon in polar regions. They were created by an interaction of solar wind and the earth’s magnetic field. The charged particles from the sun enter the magnetic field and are channelled towards the magnetic poles. The particles enter the atmosphere in the ionosphere, at the latest 100km over ground, and let the air particles lighting. The aurora lights violet, red or green, depending on the chemical composition of this layer, and it moves in the wind. Polar lights appear at the same time in the Arctic, there they are called Aurora borealis (Northern Lights), and in Antarctica Aurora australis (Southern Lights).

An 8-kilogram piece of
Mars found in Antarctica
          Meteorites are found all over the Earth. To date over 16,000 have been recovered and new ones are being found daily. Since 1974, fourteen thousand of these have been found in Antarctica. This is probably because they are easier to spot against the ice. Many of these meteorites flow along with the glaciers toward the sea, but thousands 'wash' up against barriers such as mountain ridges where wind erodes the ice, just leaving the meteorites on the surface. Antarctic meteorites date back to the earliest formation of our Solar System and have been traced back to the Moon and even Mars. There are literally bits and pieces of other planets just lying around waiting to be picked up. Antarctic scientists have brought back rock samples from other worlds at a billionth of the cost of any space program. Mars is covered in craters which are the remnants of early impacts by asteroids or perhaps even comets, and it was one of these collisions that sprayed Martian rock across the inner Solar System. Around 13,000 years ago, one such rock landed in Antarctica, where it was found in 1984. It was soon verified as one of a dozen Mars rocks discovered on Earth. Scientists believe that the rock fragment, which is about 4.5 billion years old, was ejected from the surface of Mars when a comet or asteroid struck the planet about 15 million years ago. Studying the meteorites from the Antarctic ice has greatly increased our understanding of how planets formed.

Aurora

Next chapter: SubAntarctic Islands