Discovery of microbes confirms life under Antarctic ice

Scientists have discovered life in extreme ecosystems beneath the ice sheets covering Antarctica, raising the tantalizing possibility that similar severe environments in our solar system could harbor some kind of life. Researchers have retrieved samples of healthy bacteria and other microorganism living in a freshwater lake buried beneath a half mile of ice on the frigid continent.

The environment in Lake Whillans might not be all that different from environments on a number of the icy moons of Saturn and Jupiter, scientists say. Europa, a moon of Jupiter, and Enceladus, orbiting Saturn, both have been found to possess large amounts of liquid water lying beneath their icy crusts.

Drilling down into the depths of Lake Whillans, scientists were surprised to find almost 4,000 microbial species living in the dark water, many of them dining on inorganic compounds as their primary energy source. It's the extreme nature of the environment in the coldest place on Earth that has scientists thinking of the possibilities of life existing elsewhere in our solar system.

There are almost 400 similar lakes trapped deep beneath the permanent ice cover of Antarctica, with a number of them -- including Lake Whillans -- connected by subterranean streams and rivers. Those waterways regularly fill and drain Lake Whillans like a giant bathtub in a cycle lasting between five to 10 years. The lake has been completely entombed in ice for at least a million years, the researchers say.

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