Science Alert: You step off the plane, having travelled across the world to the opposite hemisphere. The seasons are all backwards, and when you look up at the full Moon, you realise it’s not even the right way up!
Not only is this incredibly weird (mostly because, how did we not realise this before?), but this curious quirk of our round planet actually has surprising implications for researchers trying to investigate the night sky.
“From our perspective, the Moon and the night sky is actually rotated 180 degrees compared to our Northern Hemispherical friends,” Jake Clark, an astronomer from the University of Southern Queensland in Australia, explained to ScienceAlert.
“In the south we see the Moon’s dark ‘Oceanus Procellarum’ sea in the south-east corner compared to in the north-west corner for a northern observer.” But why does it look like this? Well, because physically, we’re actually upside down compared to someone standing in the opposite hemisphere. This also extends to the crescent Moon – depending where you are in the world will give you different rotations of the crescent.
“Next time you’re planning a holiday travel to a country near the equator during a crescent moon, when the Moon sets it will look like a smiling face,” Clark explains.
And it’s not just the Moon that’s prone to changing orientation; all of the stars you can see will be either different or upside down, too.
“It depends upon where you’re located on Earth but generally the constellations we see in the Southern Hemisphere are rotated again by 180 degrees compared to the Northern Hemisphere,” says Clark.
“In Australia, Orion’s leg and belt is commonly known as ‘The Saucepan’, as it looks like a big old cooking pot!”
So how can you see what the other side of the world sees? Jonti Horner, also at the University of Southern Queensland, suggests a great approach: simply get upside down.
“I’m from the UK originally, and while I know the night sky really well, I sometimes find flipping my vision over helps me get my bearings!” he explains.
You can do a handstand if you’re good at that sort of thing, but an easier way is to lie on the ground facing north and lean your head back until you see the ground at the top of your vision.
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