Quantcast
ZME Science
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
No Result
View All Result
ZME Science

No Result
View All Result
ZME Science
No Result
View All Result
Home Environment

NASA is stunned to find life beneath 183 meters of Antarctic ice

Mihai Andrei by Mihai Andrei
October 28, 2013
in Environment, Studies, World Problems
Reading Time: 2 mins read
A A
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterSubmit to Reddit

At nearly 200 meters below the ice, there is no light, the temperature is way below 0 degrees, and scientists were expecting to find nothing more than a handful of microbes – and for good reason. So it’s easy to understand why they were so surprised to find not a single (evolved) life form, but actually two such creatures.

Antarctica Sea Life

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration lowered the camera, in an attempt to look deep in the underbelly of Antarctica’s ice; not long after that, a shrimp-like creature swam by and then “landed” on the cable. Scientists also picked up a tentacle that they believe can only come from a jellyfish – a pretty big one too.

Sorry to interrupt, but you should really...

...Join the ZME newsletter for amazing science news, features, and exclusive scoops. More than 40,000 subscribers can't be wrong.

   

ADVERTISEMENT

“We were operating on the presumption that nothing’s there,” said NASA ice scientist Robert Bindschadler, who will be presenting the initial findings and a video at an American Geophysical Union meeting Wednesday. “It was a shrimp you’d enjoy having on your plate. We were just gaga over it,” he said of the 3-inch-long (76-millimeter, orange critter starring in their two-minute video.

The video forces experts to rethink what they previously believed about where evolved animals can survive in extreme environments; if they can live in this freezing underwater environment, why not on Europa, the frozen moon of Jupiter, or other such places?

“This is a first for the sub-glacial environment with that level of sophistication,” Ellis-Evans said. He said there have been findings somewhat similar, showing complex life in retreating ice shelves, but nothing quite directly under the ice like this.

ADVERTISEMENT

Tags: BiologyenvironmentfrozenhabitatlifenasaResearchshrimpstudy
ShareTweetShare
Mihai Andrei

Mihai Andrei

Andrei's background is in geophysics, and he's been fascinated by it ever since he was a child. Feeling that there is a gap between scientists and the general audience, he started ZME Science -- and the results are what you see today.

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.