Life Found Deep Beneath Antarctic Ice

Sophisticated creatures found 600ft below frozen sheet
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 16, 2010 4:09 AM CDT
Updated Mar 16, 2010 5:32 AM CDT

NASA scientists probing 600 feet beneath an Antarctic ice sheet were amazed to find sophisticated life where they had expected to find a few microbes at best. The team put a video camera into the dark subfreezing water and found a shrimp-like creature clinging to the cable when they pulled it back up, as well as a tentacle they believe came from a foot-long jellyfish.

"They are looking at the equivalent of a drop of water in a swimming pool that you would expect nothing to be living in, and they found not one animal but two," a team biologist told AP. "We have no idea what's going on down there." Scientists say the find signals that they may need to rethink their ideas on how much life can thrive in hostile environments, both on Earth and in places like the moons of Jupiter.
(More Antarctica stories.)

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