What Ancient Antarctic Microbes Reveal About The Hunt For Extraterrestrial Life
McMurdo Dry Valleys, Home Of Lake Vida Robert Simmon, based on data provided by the NASA GSFC Oceans and Ice Branch and the Landsat 7 Science TeamDozens of feet below the surface of Antarctica in an environment inhospitable to most life, a diverse colony of microbes is flourishing. In a frigid lake some 65 feet below Antarctica's icy surface, NASA scientists and their partners from the Desert Research Institute in Nevada and several other institutions have made an important discovery both for our understanding of life on Earth and for the search for extraterrestrial life. In the briny depths of Lake Vida, an oxygen-free, nitrous oxide-rich saltwater body buried underneath Antarctic ice for millennia, the researchers have found a thriving colony of bacteria. This, in an environment that would instantly extinguish most life. Despite the cold (it averages 8 degrees below zero) and lack of sunlight, as well as the extreme...