Participants

Cyprien Verseux


Biography

Cyprien Verseux is an astrobiologist at the Center for Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM) at the University of Bremen. In 2018, he led the DC14 mission, a wintering in Antarctica at one of the world’s most isolated bases: Concordia. This station is jointly managed by the French (Institut polaire français Paul-Emile Victor – IPEV) and Italian (Programma nazionale di ricerche in Antartide – PNRA) polar institutes. He was also a glaciologist, employed for this function by the CNR (Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche, the Italian equivalent of the CNRS). In 2015-2016, he took part in HI-SEAS IV (Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation IV), a one-year NASA-funded simulation of a mission to Mars, to test various psychological and technological aspects of such a mission. Cyprien Verseux recounts these two adventures in his books Vivre sur Mars and Un hiver antarctique.

Conference: Does time flow differently on the Concordia Antarctic base?

In the heart of Antarctica, in a white desert as far as the eye can see, stand two towers linked by a covered walkway: the Concordia base. Between November and February, planes and land convoys take passengers to the base, where up to 80 people can be accommodated. In February, all but a dozen crew members – the overwinterers – leave. For 9 months, the base became inaccessible, and temperatures of up to -80°C made evacuation impossible. Continuous day turned into continuous night, including three months without the sun reaching the horizon. Few events differentiate one month from another, and no bird whistles in the morning. Under these conditions, how does our notion of time change?