(16 February 2016) The 31st Summer campaign of Antarctica National Research Program (PNRA) has come to an end, and lights are out in the Italian Mario Zucchelli base at Terra Nova Bay. Yesterday, February 14, the last 27 participants left the base and are currently in transit at the US McMurdo Base. Instead, the oceanographic campaign in the Ross Sea aboard the Italica ship is still underway, hosting numerous Italian researchers and technicians, who will return to New Zealand once the mission is completed. 90 researchers have been involved in the course of this summer campaign in various scientific fields, for a total of 40 projects on the life sciences, the Earth’s atmosphere and space. The collected data will be processed in the coming months at the Italian laboratories that took part in the projects. As the summer campaign comes to an end, a new one has just begun: the French-Italian Concordia base, located on the Antarctic plateau at 3,300 m above sea level, the 12th winter campaign began on 9 February, before the air link with the base officially closed, marking the end of the summer season. For the next eight months, a group of 12 people – five Italians of the PNRA, 6 French from the IPEV (French Polar Institute Paul Emile Victor) and 1 ESA doctor (European Space Agency) – will remain in complete isolation to maintain the equipment and conduct experimental studies of glaciology, chemistry and atmospheric physics, astrophysics, astronomy, geophysics and biomedicine. PNRA missions are promoted and financed by the Ministry of Education, University and Research, and implemented by ENEA (the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development) with the scientific coordination of the CNR – National Research Council. (Red)
