The idea for Aurora Borealis was thought up by the European Science Federation and researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany.

It will look at a lot of things: deep hydrothermal vents, deep ocean ridges where there is volcanic activity, deep sediments, biological processes in the shallow waters as well as climate and weather conditions.

Initially it will be used in the Arctic but it is envisaged it will also be used for Antarctic expeditions. The final design is currently being drawn up by marine architects in Germany and Finland.

Model

• Backward or forward action. The Aurora Borealis will have a flat rather than pointed bow to allow the ship to drive forwards, rise up on the ice and let the weight of the ship break the ice.
  
• Sideways action. Unlike most ice-breakers, the vessel will also be able to break ice laterally. To accomplish this, the vessel has been designed with steep sides and will use strengthened propellers. It will be able to break the ice on one side of the boat; this ice will then pass beneath the ship to be washed away by the propeller system.

The boat will have twin steel hulls (8-10cm thick at the bow and stern). If the outer hull is punctured the inner will hopefully remain intact.

Diesel engines will propel the ship.

INITIAL DESIGN CONCEPT
Length: 180m    |    Beam: 40m    |    Max. speed: 15 knots    |    Voyage: up to 60 days    |    Crew: 120

Ice-breaking

The ship will house between 50 and 70 scientists. As well as allowing them to drill the Arctic sea floor, Aurora Borealis will be equipped with a range of scientific instruments and other equipment:

• Boats and a helicopter.
  
• Echo sounders along with seismic gravity and magnetic systems.
  
• Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) which can be launched underneath the ice.
  
• Many onboard facilities, including clean rooms, deep freeze specimen stores and labs with "floating floors" to protect sensitive equipment against vibrations.
  
• High speed internet and fast data transmission systems to and from shore-labs.

COSTS
Design: 12m euros
Construction: 300m euros
Operation: 12m euros/year

Example of a ROV

The piece of ocean crust at the centre of the Central Arctic Ocean is the least known of any crust in the entire ocean.

Only one drilling expedition has ever been mounted in there because of the cost and the difficulty. At that time, three ships were used: one to drill and two to circle the boat and keep the ice away.

But Aurora Borealis should allow scientists to routinely drill the Arctic sea floor through the summer months. The rig will be able to bore up to 1km (3,300ft) under the sea floor in water depths of 5km (16,400ft). It will be kept in the same spot using its dynamic positioning system and lateral ice-breaking capability.

Example of ship with drilling platform

The boat will contain two 7m- (23ft) diameter moon pools - openings in the bottom of the hull to allow scientists direct access - in a comfortable environment - to the ocean beneath the ice.

A moon pool is an opening in the 'floor' giving access to the water below. It is a feature of drill-ships and marine drilling platforms, exploration/ research vessels.

One of Aurora Borealis's pools will be used to:

The other will be used to:

NAUTICAL EQUIPMENT
Radar for echo location; Sonar for water depth; Clinometer to record ship's motion; Ice forecasting system; Speed log

NOTE: Moon pools are also used in some underwater habitats. These are fixed underwater structures in which people can live for extended periods and carry out most of the basic human functions of a 24-hour day, such as working, resting, eating, attending to personal hygiene, and sleeping.

The main propulsion for the boat will be a so-called azimuth system. With this, propellers are mounted in pods which can be rotated in any horizontal direction, doing away with the need for a conventional rudder. The ice strengthened system will give the boat better manoeuvrability than a standard craft. They are also cheaper to run and maintain. Ships with azimuth thrusters do not need tugs to dock. There are two variants of azimuth thruster:

• Mechanical transmission, where a diesel or diesel-electric motor inside the ship is connected to the pod by gearing. This is the variant used (I think) by the Aurora Borealis for propulsion.
• Electrical transmission, where an electric motor is in the pod itself, connected directly to the propeller without gears. Azipod is a registered brand name for for this type of azimuth thruster. Azipods are used in the vessel's dynamic positioning sytem (see below).

As well as providing the normal forward propulsion for the vessel, the diesel-engine-driven propeller-pods also play a key role in the ship's dynamic positioning system (see below), which allows it to maintain an almost constant position whilst drilling.

Many Arctic ice-breakers use nuclear reactors. However, Antarctic treaties do not allow nuclear power. So two diesel engines will be used for propulsion instead, generating 55MW of power

This will use satellite-controlled bow thrusters and azipods to keep the boat in position whilst drilling.

Bow thrusters are propulsion devices on the bow of a vessel that enhance the vessel's manoeuvrability. They make docking easier, because they allow the captain to turn the vessel to port or starboard without using the main propulsion mechanism which requires some forward motion for turning.

Azipods are electrically driven propellers mounted on a steerable pod that can turn through 360 degrees. They are commonly used on large cruise ships. The azipods will be used together with the main azimuth steering system at the stern of the boat to keep the boat in position to an accuracy of 1m. They will need to be strong enough to break any ice that is pushed under the boat. The Azipod concept is not practical for use on warships because of damage control difficulties: integrating propulsion with rudder makes them both easier to damage or destroy.

Some kind of satellite positioning system will be used to:

• accurately pinpoint the boat for navigation, sample collection and scientific surveys
  
• control the boat's dynamic positioning system.

To start with, Aurora Borealis will use either the American GPS system or the Russian Glosnass for navigation. However, it could eventually use the European Galileo, which is currently being built and is expected to come on line in 2012.

The polar ship is named after the natural phenomenon known as the Aurora Borealis.

Auroras are natural different coloured light displays, which are usually observed in the night sky, particularly near the poles and occur most often around the equinoxes, i.e. from September to October and from March to April.

The aurorae near the north pole are known as the northern lights or as the Aurora Borealis, named after the Roman goddess of the dawn, Aurora, and the Greek name for north wind, Boreas.

The aurorae near the south pole are known as the southern lights or as the Aurora Australis, Australis being a Latin word meaning "of the South".

Why do the aurorae occur? The Earth has a magnetic field like that of a bar magnet.
Charged particles (mainly electrons & protons) streaming outward from the Sun arrive near the Earth, where some get trapped in spiral paths around the planet's magnetic field lines, traveling back and forth between the two poles. The Earth's magnetic field lines get denser at the poles: they dip towards and enter the Earth's surface there. So a lot of charged particles enter the atmosphere and excite its atoms, creating the colours you see. Most aurorae are green and red emission from atomic oxygen. (Nitrogen molecules and ions produce low-height red and high-up blue/violet aurorae.)

The northern lights.  The aurorae often appear as a greenish glow (or sometimes a faint red), as if the sun were rising from an unusual direction.