hiya bucks in Bourne End, Flackwell Heath, Marlow, Wycombe, Wooburn July 2016 | Page 2

book review

Dr Melanie Windridge,
Physicist, speaker, writer… with
a taste for adventure

Melanie grew up in
Amersham and loves
science and the outdoors,
and has built up her career
around these passions.
Her new book, Aurora: In
Search of the Northern
Lights, was published by
HarperCollins in February.

When I was 25, after three post-university years travelling, I started a doctorate in plasma
physics. I was studying fusion energy, particularly how we make fusion power stations on
Earth. But fusion wasn’t the only plasma phenomenon that would capture my attention.
Fusion is what is happening in the stars to make them shine. Small particles combine to
make bigger ones – just like assembling building blocks or Lego bricks. Fusion releases huge
amounts of energy. But making a star on Earth is really hard to do, so we can’t do it yet. But
we are working on it, and it will happen one day.
Towards the end of my doctorate I began to want to see the northern lights. I wanted to be
exploring the wonder of nature in the outdoors, not in the lab. So I decided to write a book
about the northern lights, and I went on an extraordinary journey to find out about them.
My first experience of the aurora was in Kiruna, Sweden:
“To the west, the mine looked almost ethereal, dripping white light and with
three plumes of smoke billowing into the sky, illuminated from below. I turned my
back on the industry and looked north, where a very quiet aurora was beginning
to appear as a green, arcing haze. Over time it grew in colour and clarity, the arch
becoming more defined, then breaking and twisting into an S-shape. Other parts
of the sky were brightening too, but in different ways..”
I travelled in Northern Norway learning about the folklore and culture of the aurora. I
went trekking in Iceland to get a feel for the active geology of our planet. I visited small
observatories in Canada and even saw faint northern lights in Scotland. Finally, I skied out
across Arctic Spitsbergen to see the aurora in the wilderness as old polar explorers would
have done. I have never been so cold in my entire life!
This book really is a journey of discovery, as much about the travel, personal stories and
history as about the science.

AURORA is available on Amazon and in bookshops
like Waterstones, Blackwells and Foyles.
Visit www.melaniewindridge.co.uk or
find Melanie on Twitter and Facebook.
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Chris Sinclair - photography

I continue working in fusion energy and planning trips for future
projects. I would like to go to Antarctica and write about the
incredible research that goes on down there. Of course, there will
be a few personal challenges thrown in too! I hope to inspire an
appreciation of science through the excitement of exploration.