Do people in Antarctica stand upside down compared to other places on Earth?

(Dan Tri) - Listen to the sharing of an astrophysicist who lived and worked in Antarctica to know what it feels like to stand in this land.

In Antarctica, which way is up? (Photo: Abigail Bishop).

Ms. Abigail Bishop - an astrophysicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, who lived and worked for nearly 2 months in Antarctica - said: "When I stand in Antarctica, I feel like any other place on Earth because my feet are still on the ground and the sky is still above my head.

I didn't feel upside down, but there were still some differences that made Antarctica feel upside down compared to what I'm used to.”

She said she was an avid moon watcher and noticed that the “banyan tree” on the moon was upside down. All the craters on the moon that she observed in Wisconsin appeared to be upside down when she was in Antarctica because she was looking at the moon from the southern hemisphere instead of the northern hemisphere.

What the Moon looks like depends on your perspective (Photo: Planetary Society, CC BY-SA).

“After noticing this difference, I remembered a similar thing in the night sky of New Zealand, a country near Antarctica, where my companions and I wore red jackets to keep warm in Antarctica.

“I was looking for Orion, a constellation that in the Northern Hemisphere is pictured as a hunter holding a bow and pulling an arrow from his quiver. In the night sky over New Zealand, Orion looks like he’s doing a headstand,” Ms. Bishop said.

“Everything in the sky felt upside down and completely opposite to what I was used to. A person living in the southern hemisphere might feel the same way when visiting the North Pole,” Ms. Bishop continued.

The photo of the 'Big Blue Marble' was taken by astronauts on the Apollo 17 spacecraft in 1972 (Photo: NASA).

An unusual perspective

To understand what's going on, and why everything is so different yet feels so similar, let's imagine standing a little above the surface of the Earth, like on a spaceship.

During flights to the Moon, astronauts could see one entire side of the Earth.

If an astronaut had superhuman vision, they would see people at the North and South Poles standing upside down. And a person at the equator would look as if they were sticking out of the edge of the planet.

In fact, even though they may be standing on the equator, people in Colombia and Indonesia would look as if they were upside down, because they are protruding from opposite sides of the Earth.

Of course, if you ask each person, everyone will say "my feet are on the ground, and the sky is above".

Because the Earth is essentially a giant sphere, its gravitational pull on each of us is pulling us toward the center of the planet. The direction the Earth is pulling us is what people all over the planet call "downward."

Imagine you're holding a ball between your two index fingers. From the perspective of your fingertips on the surface of the ball, they're both pointing "down." But from the perspective of a friend standing nearby, your fingers are pointing in different directions - although always toward the center of the ball.

Abigail Bishop performs a handstand at the South Pole ceremony (Photo: Abigail Bishop).

However, the human relationships on the surface of the Earth are also somewhat interesting.

“When I was in Antarctica, I did a handstand and my body was facing my friends in Wisconsin in the same direction as theirs, but if you look at the picture the other way around, it looks like I'm holding up the planet, just like Superman,” Ms. Bishop said.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/khoa-hoc/nguoi-o-nam-cuc-co-dung-lon-nguoc-so-voi-noi-khac-tren-trai-dat-khong-20250717004757491.htm