How to Travel to the Most Remote Office on Earth
Concordia is more isolated than the International Space Station, 240 miles above Earth's surface.
Photograph: ESA/IPEV/PNRA - A. Kumar
You see these wonderful ice shelves from the little windows you have there. The first thing you see when you step out is just ice everywhere. You're really new to this environment, and sometimes it feels a little bit like being on another planet.
There's an Italian station there, and we were supposed to stay for a day. But what we learned very fast is that, in French, we say, en Antarctique pas de pronostique, meaning, 'no forecast in Antarctica,' because the weather is super unpredictable. So, instead of staying one night, we stayed almost a week.
This station is just a logistical one; it's not meant to host people, and everyone who stays there blocks others from coming in. It's a real logistical challenge for the people working there, so they want us to leave as fast as possible. But the weather is so unpredictable that you can't just take a plane and go inland. You need to wait until the weather is almost stable, and the pilot says, 'I'm ready to fly,' because he has the final word.
I still had my data problem from before, and I was trying to connect to the internet. There, it was like the internet of the '90s—you know, beep beep beep. I tried to log in, and finally, after maybe two or three hours, on one computer, I got to the stage where it said, 'OK, I'm going to log in to your account so you can download your stuff. Please give me your phone number. I'm going to send you an SMS to log in.' That was the double verification, and it wasn't working because, obviously, there's no phone service. So I couldn't access my data because of this double verification.
Finally, we took a plane. This one is smaller, a Basler BT-67 plane, which comes from Canada to fly within Antarctica and then goes back to Canada at the end of the season. This plane ride took four hours. It's a non-pressurized plane. You make sure to put all your clothes on, to be ready to go out in Concordia, because it's about minus 30 Celsius. We were super afraid.
The first thing after landing in Concordia was this feeling of dizziness, vertigo. What I didn't know when I arrived there is that you're at 3,200 meters above sea level, so you feel the altitude a little bit. After four hours in this small plane, where you just see flatness of white, and nothing else, you come down to Concordia.
From a distance, you see the station. That station seems so small because there's literally nothing around it—no mountains, nothing. And you have this little boulot dans l'estomac, as we say in French, like butterflies, because, you know, 'Wow, that's going to be my home for one year.' We came down to Concordia station, and the crew that had just spent a year and was now leaving the station, was awaiting us and welcomed us very warmly. They got us inside the station because we were sometimes afraid of high-altitude sickness. They want to make sure no one is carrying anything heavy, that we're not doing physical activity. They told us, 'Just stay calm for the next few days.'
Concordia is accessible only by aircraft during the summer months, from November to February. In winter, temperatures plummet to minus 112 degrees Fahrenheit.
Photograph: ESA/IPEV/PNRA - A. Kumar
The station is made of two towers, with 18 faces for each tower. It's basically white, with a little bit of orange, and that's it. You enter through a tunnel between the two towers. You take off your boots and leave all your stuff there. It's quite small. Then you can go to the left, which is the 'calm tower.' Inside, you have the dormitories, the laboratories, and the hospital. It has three floors. The middle floor is dormitories, and the upper floor is laboratories. It's called the 'calm tower' to keep it calm. Then we go to the other tower, on the right side from the entrance. It has the technical stuff. On the second floor, there's the video room for movies and the sports room. On the top, you have the living room, the eating area, and the kitchen.
In five minutes, you've done the tour of your new home. It's super impressive because you think, 'Someone had to build this in the middle of nowhere. Someone had to take the first steps.' And this is just incredible. So many people go to Antarctica with nothing. We arrive here, and we have the luxury of having this building to protect us from this environment.
It's so out of this world to be there. We've seen a lot of pictures of Antarctica, and we've probably read a lot of books, but you've never been in the center of Antarctica, which is quite different. There's no life—no birds, no trees—there's literally nothing, nothing but ice and wind.
A version of this story originally appeared on WIRED.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
National Geographic
3 hours ago
- National Geographic
The story behind pavlova, the dessert that sparked an international rivalry
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK). Sweet as it tastes, this much-loved dessert has a bitter history. As is the case with both hummus and hamburgers, the pavlova's birthplace is hotly disputed, with Australia and New Zealand each claiming credit for the idea of crowning towers of billowing meringue with clouds of snowy cream and tumbling fruit. Regular shots are fired back and forth across the Tasman Sea, most recently when a Kiwi energy company 'declared war' by installing an advert at Auckland Airport baggage reclaim stating: 'Home is where the pavlova was really created'. Reactions on the other side of 'the ditch' were outraged: 'Nice of them to promote tourism to Australia' was one online comment. The feud goes all the way to the top, as then Kiwi prime minister Jacinda Ardern discovered when she arrived in Melbourne to find a DIY pavlova kit in her hotel room — prompting her partner to question whether this represented a 'sense of humour or diplomatic incident'. King Charles must have been unaware of the simmering controversy when he boldly praised Sydney's 'world famous cuisine … whether it's smashed avo, a pav or a cab sav' in a speech at the city's Parramatta Park last year. Yet, in truth, the pavlova's precise origins are shrouded in mystery. It was almost certainly named for the great prima ballerina Anna Pavlova, from St Petersburg — probably to celebrate her hugely successful 1926 tour of Australia and New Zealand. This wasn't uncommon practice at the time; peach melba was invented at London's Savoy Hotel to pay tribute to the Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba, while Britain's Garibaldi biscuit honours the Italian revolutionary, who was given a rapturous welcome on a visit to these shores. Such was the vogue for sprinkling stardust over a menu that, at the height of Pavlova's career, you can find mention of sponge cakes, layered jellies and 'a popular variety of American ice-cream' all bearing her name, too. Although the meringue number is now the last pavlova standing, at the time it was simply a rebranding of an existing dessert — a fixture in the patisserie repertoire long before Anna pirouetted onto the world stage. Food historian Janet Clarkson suggests 'neither Australia nor New Zealand invented the meringue, because the meringue was invented before they were'. And while many trace meringue's origins to 18th-century Switzerland, in Clarkson's blog, the Old Foodie, she dates the first recorded recipe to the 1604 collection of a Lady Elinor Fettiplace. The pavlova's precise origins are shrouded in mystery. Photograph by Hannah Hughes Annabelle Utrecht, a Queensland-based writer, has devoted the past decade to digging into the history of the pavlova, prompted by an online argument with a Kiwi acquaintance. In the course of their research, the pair discovered that by the 18th century, 'large meringue constructions incorporating cream and fruit elements could be found in aristocratic kitchens across German-speaking lands, so the thing we call a pavlova today is actually more than two centuries old'. Naturally, everyone wanted a slice of this noble pie, and recipes began to appear: the vacherin, a meringue bowl filled with whipped cream or ice cream, fruit and syrup-infused sponge cake, often credited to the 19th-century French chef Marie-Antoine Carême; the baked alaska; the German schaum ('foam') torte. Even English writer Mrs Beeton includes a meringue gateau, filled with macerated strawberries and whipped cream, in her 1861 recipe collection. It therefore seems likely that the pavlova probably arrived in both New Zealand and Australia with European immigrants long before Pavlova herself. Of course, few dishes spring fully formed from nowhere, but when did the idea of a meringue topped with cream and fruit begin to be known as a 'pavlova' — or a 'pav', if you speak Antipodean? The earliest mention of something resembling the modern pavlova labelled as such can be found in the 1929 New Zealand Dairy Exporter Annual, contributed by a reader, although this version seems to have been layered more like a French dacquoise. The next-earliest, from the Rangiora Mothers' Union Cookery Book of Tried and Tested Recipes, of 1933, is also Kiwi. Australia's first claim to the dish dates from 1935, when Herbert 'Bert' Sachse, the chef at Perth's Esplanade Hotel, was asked to come up with something new for the afternoon tea menu. Manager Harry Nairn apparently remarked that his creation was 'as light as Pavlova', and the legend was born. However, one of Sachse's descendants contacted Helen Leach, a culinary anthropologist at the University of Otago, to suggest their ancestor may have confused the dates, given Pavlova's death in 1931. And in a 1973 interview, Sachse himself explained his creation was an adaptation of a recipe from Australian Woman's Mirror magazine, submitted by a New Zealand resident. When questioned by Australian newspaper The Beverley Times, the 'silver-haired great grandfather' mused that he'd 'always regretted that the meringue cake was invariably too hard and crusty, so I set out to create something that would have a crunchy top and would cut like a marshmallow'. This, according to Utrecht's Kiwi research partner Dr Andrew Paul Wood, makes Western Australia-born Sachse unusual among his countrymen: 'I think the Australian meringue is crunchier … the New Zealand one is more marshmallowy inside,' Wood told The Sydney Morning Herald's Good Food guide. In her 2024 book Sift, British pastry chef and cookery book author Nicola Lamb writes that adding cornflour to the meringue base, as both Sachse and the New Zealand Dairy Exporter Annual reader suggest, 'helps promote [this] marshmallowy, thick texture'. For maximum squishiness, however, Lamb recommends shaping the mixture into a tall crown, 'as it's more difficult for the heat to penetrate the thick meringue walls'; if you prefer crunchy all the way through, go for a shallow bowl shape. Whatever texture you choose, once the meringue has cooled completely it's generally filled with whipped cream — usually unsweetened, given the sugar in the meringue, although it may be flavoured with vanilla — and then your choice of fruit. Australian cultural historian Dr Carmel Cedro agrees with Wood that not only do the two countries disagree over the correct texture for a pavlova, but on appropriate toppings. 'Here, passion fruit is a must,' she told Australia's ABC News, 'whereas [in New Zealand], they would never do that; it's always kiwi fruit.' In recent years, however, this classic summer dessert — or, if you're Down Under, festive favourite — has gone as rogue as its history. Australian food stylist and author Donna Hay has published countless recipes for everything from a banoffee pavlova to a baked pavlova and upside-down and frozen versions, and even a festive raspberry swirl pavlova wreath. South African restaurateur, broadcaster and writer Prue Leith, meanwhile, has a vegan-friendly take using aquafaba and coconut milk, while English food writer and TV cook Nigella Lawson gifted the world the chocolate pavlova paired with raspberries. And although pavlova isn't typically seen as a gourmet creation, Australian chef Peter Gilmore's signature dessert at Bennelong, the Sydney Opera House's fine-dining restaurant, takes it high end. Inspired by the architecture of the building itself, it features white meringue sails atop perfect spikes of whipped cream and Italian meringue filled with passion fruit curd. When it comes to pavlova, it seems, there's one for every taste. Although the caviar and cranberry number recently dreamed up by a firm of Polish fish farmers might prove the one pav neither Australia nor New Zealand wants to claim as their own. The pavlova's birthplace is hotly disputed, with Australia and New Zealand each claiming credit for the idea of crowning towers of billowing meringue with clouds of snowy cream and tumbling fruit. Photograph by Hannah Hughes Where to eat pavlova in Australia and New Zealand Cibo, Auckland Hidden away in a former chocolate factory in Parnell, Cibo has been described as one of Auckland's best-kept secrets, although it's still won numerous awards over the past three decades. There are usually at least two pavlovas on offer: a fruit version (classic strawberry and kiwi, for example) and one with salted caramel, peanut and chocolate dust. Floriditas, Wellington When The Sydney Morning Herald praises a New Zealand pavlova, the dessert has to be doing something right — although this much-loved bistro doesn't make things easy for itself. Instead of the classic recipe using white caster sugar, Floriditas opts for brown sugar, which is damper and more temperamental, but which gives the meringue base a deeper, richer flavour. Fruit varies with the seasons, from strawberries in summer to tamarillos in autumn. Ester, Sydney Forget hovering anxiously in front of the oven to ensure your snowy meringue doesn't take on even the merest hint of tan — at this Sydney neighbourhood joint (which comes highly recommended by Nigella Lawson) they char them in a wood-fired oven at a toasty 600C. That's a full 500C hotter than most recipes recommend, giving them the distinct look of a marshmallow toasted over a campfire. The accompaniments vary; they might be nectarine and yoghurt or passion fruit and elderflower, for example. Snow White Bakery, Melbourne Overwhelming local enthusiasm for this tiny bakery's classic pavlova — an unapologetically traditional tower of meringue, cream and icing-sugar-dusted berries — may be less of a news story than baker Tegan's Vegemite-infused take on the beloved Australian lamington (a cake), but it's probably more of a crowd-pleaser. For maximum squishiness, pastry chef and cookery book author Nicola Lamb recommends shaping the mixture into a tall crown; if you prefer crunchy all the way through, go for a shallow bowl shape. Photograph by Hannah Hughes Recipe: Helen Goh's summer berry pavlova To celebrate summer, I've chosen a mix of berries with a touch of passion fruit as a nod to the dessert's Antipodean roots — but feel free to use any in-season fruit. Serves: 8-10 Takes: 2 hrs 5 mins plus cooling Ingredients For the meringue250g egg whites (6-8 eggs, depending on size)½ tsp cream of tartar400g caster sugar2 tsp vanilla extract1 tsp white vinegar2 tsp cornflour pinch of salt
Digital Trends
5 hours ago
- Digital Trends
The ISS menu is about to get a lot more interesting
The first person to consume food in space was Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who during his brief time in orbit in 1961 had the unenviable pleasure of devouring a meal of beef and liver paste squeezed from an aluminum tube. It sounds awful, because it almost certainly was. Over the decades, however, astronaut food has steadily improved, and while some dishes continue to require rehydration in foil packets, others actually bear some resemblance to what you might eat back on terra firma — although this sushi 'meal' doesn't really cut it. Recommended Videos French astronaut Sophie Adenot is one of the lucky ones. When she heads to the International Space Station (ISS) next year, she's going to be taking with her some top-class nosh created by award-winning Michelin-starred chef Anne-Sophie Pic. Taking a welcome break from freeze-dried scrambled eggs and powdered soups, Adenot and her ISS crewmates will get to enjoy tasty dishes such as parsnip velouté with curry and smoked haddock, onion soup with pink peppercorns and gratinéed croutons, and lobster bisque with crab and caraway — and they're just the starters. While most meals aboard the ISS are basic fare from cans or vacuum packs, every so often a special 'bonus meal' is prepared for all of the astronauts to enjoy together, partly to help with crew bonding, and partly to give everyone a welcome break from the blander menu items. 'During a mission, sharing our respective food is a way to invite our crewmates to discover more about our culture,' Adenot said. 'It's a very special bonding moment for all of us and a welcome change in our day-to-day routine. I have no doubt they'll be as enthusiastic as I am when they get a chance to taste Anne-Sophie's dishes.' When creating the one-off menu, Pic had to consider strict rules for food aboard the ISS. For example, dishes have to be solid or contained so that crumbs or small bits don't float away in the microgravity conditions and clog up the space station's ventilation systems. 'Cooking for space means pushing the boundaries of gastronomy,' Pic said. 'With my team in my research and development lab, we embraced a thrilling challenge: preserving the emotion of taste despite extreme technical constraints.' As NASA looks toward the first crewed missions to Mars and beyond, astronauts have also been experimenting with growing produce in microgravity, providing them with fresh food as part of a sustainable life-support system, while also boosting crew morale.
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
Scientists tracking ‘interstellar' object that has come to us from another solar system
Astronomers may have just discovered a new interstellar object passing through our solar system. The object, a celestial body from another star system, was discovered on Tuesday by the University of Hawaii's Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS, team. At this point, it remains unclear what the object may be or look like as it moves near Jupiter. Now, scientists are checking to confirm their findings. 'ESA's Planetary Defenders are observing the object, provisionally known as #A11pl3Z, right now using telescopes around the world,' the European Space Agency said in a social media post on Wednesday. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration told The Associated Press that it is monitoring the situation. David Rankin, of the University of Arizona's Catalina Sky Survey, said in posts on BlueSky that follow-up observations were made not long after the discovery. A precovery — observations from archival images in which the object was not originally discovered — from CalTech's Zwicky Transient Facility hinted at the presence of an interstellar object. 'After a few more precovery observations, and follow-ups, it became clear this object is on a hyperbolic trajectory through the solar system,' Rankin wrote. Since then, new observations have been 'rolling in,' helping astronomers to better determine its orbit. Rankin noted that the first known interstellar object to visit our solar system was 'Oumuamua, which was spotted in 2017. Up to one-quarter mile-long and 10 times as long as it is wide, its resembles a rocky cigar with a reddish hue. Its aspect ratio, which is greater than that of any asteroid or comet observed in our solar system to date, even led to speculation that it could be an alien spacecraft. Observations then suggested that it had been wandering through our Milky Way galaxy for hundreds of millions of years before its encounter with our star system, according to NASA. The second known object was Comet 2I/Borisov, found in 2019. It is the first confirmed interstellar comet, and was later captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Scientists believe that many more such objects regularly pass by the Earth, with a number of them flying relatively near to us each year. However, many of them go undetected because they are hard to spot and it is difficult to know for sure where they have come from. Researchers hope to eventually learn more about them and even use them as evidence for distant star systems and planets. They also hope to find more of them in the years to come, thanks to new and more powerful telescopes, such as the recently switched-on Vera C Rubin Observatory.
