Model Earth

Science & Technology, third prize stories

2001

Using a terrella, a miniature model earth, in a vacuum chamber, physicist Kristian Birkeland creates an artificial aurora of color, replicating the effects of solar wind. The University of Tromsø stored this early experiment from 1913. The Northern Lights—or Aurora Borealis—are produced when solar wind, eruptions of electrified particles from the sun, collide with Earth's magnetic field. These magnetic storms can also damage satellites and other telecommunications installations. In a new scientific field, researchers at the EISCAT base are pioneering space meteorology, to forecast the weather in space.

Picture Credit: Olivier Grunewald

Olivier Grunewald was born in Paris in 1959. He started photographing birds at the age of 14. After studying commercial advertising photography at the Gobelins school of images, in Paris, he began to work as freelance photographer specialized in sports, mountaineering and rock climbing. Later, he began to focus more on landscape and wildlife, spending five months in French Guyana working on leatherback turtles - work that was awarded a World Press Photo prize in the nature category in 1995. In 1997, Grunewald began work on a book, Images of Creation, which tells in pictures the story of beginnings of universe and of life on Earth. In the process, he started to photograph the Northern Lights and active volcanoes - for him a fascinating personal discovery that sparked a long-term project on volcanoes and auroras. This project led to two further World Press Photo awards, in 2002 for work on the Northern Light and space weather, and in 2004 with a series of pictures on the volcanoes of Kamtchatka. He now travels all over the world to with his wife, the geographer, journalist and writer Bernadette Gilbertas. Together they have published 14 books, the most recent being a book about Iceland (September 2011).