Students to take virtual tour of South Pole

In this photo taken Sept. 24, 2010 provided by the Kaspersky ONE Trans-antarctic Expedition, British adventurer Felicity Aston skis across Iceland during a pre-expedition training trip. Aston, who plans to ski by herself across the Antarctica, announced Friday, Nov. 25, 2011 on Twitter that she was setting out from her starting point at the Ross Ice Shelf. If she manages to complete this journey of more than 1,000 miles (1,700 kilometers) in late January, she'll become the first human person to cross Antarctica alone under her own power. She would also set a record for the longest solo polar expedition by a woman, at about 70 days.(AP Photo/Kaspersky ONE Trans-antarctic Expedition/Kaspersky Lab)

It’s the first-of-its-kind opportunity for students, not only from Mumbai but from entire Asia, to virtually visit deep inside South Pole ice and directly interact with the scientists stationed there who are tasked with observing the cosmos.

Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai, in collaboration with IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory, Antarctica & Wisconsin ICECUBE Particle Astrophysics Centre, USA, will host more than 250 students, teachers and science lovers in a two-hour programme on Tuesday night which will connect Mumbai directly to South Pole.

“This cannot be done on any random day in a year as the satellite revolving around the earth needs to be positioned closest to the South Pole,” said Saket Singh Kaurav, Curator, NSC.

Encompassing a cubic kilometre of ice, IceCube searches for nearly mass-less sub-atomic particles called neutrinos. IceCube is a multipurpose experiment allowing researchers to address big questions in physics, like the nature of dark matter and the properties of the neutrino.