Antarctic Unearthly (From the BLDG blog)

Antarctic Unearthly (From the BLDG blog)

[Image: ©Renae Baker].

"Some of the coldest temperatures on Earth brought a rare cloud formation to the skies over Antarctica," SF Gate reports. "Meteorological officer Renae Baker captured spectacular images of the nacreous clouds, also known as polar stratospheric clouds, last week at Australia's Mawson station."

[Image: ©Renae Baker].

Meanwhile, Wired introduced us last month to Werner Herzog's forthcoming science fiction film, The Wild Blue Yonder, which uses the undersea Antarctic seascape as a stand-in for liquid extraterrestrial environments.

[Image: Werner Herzog/Wired – many more photos here].

"Instead of spending millions on Spielberg-style effects, Herzog went low tech and high geek," Wired writes. "He spliced together documentary footage from NASA and the National Science Foundation’s US Antarctic Program. He created 'characters' from documentary-style scenes with actual physicists and astronauts."

[Image: Werner Herzog/Wired].

Apparently, whilst viewing "mesmerizing images of ethereal jellyfish and swarms of crystalline microorganisms mingling in a cobalt twilight beneath a 20-foot-thick sheet of ice," Herzog instinctively felt: "This is not our planet." (One assumes the sentiment should, in Herzog's case, be taken literally).

[Image: Werner Herzog/Wired].

The film "opens with a wide shot," Wired explains: "A vast, vaulted ice canopy stretches over the horizon as two human silhouettes descend through a glowing portal into the dim indigo void. They fan out weightlessly, their breath echoing like whispers in an empty cathedral. Something approaches – a speck, silently swelling into what looks like a translucent bullet lined with undulating fringes of silk. The creature hovers in close-up, then darts away in a cascade of ice shards; dissonant music fades, then swells as the humans forge farther into the blue-green deep."