Lake Vostok mystery: Alien life, global warming and Hitler's archive
Scientists, environmentalists and even World War II historians have reacted with a mixture of excitement and concern to news that Russian geologists have drilled through to a huge subterranean lake in Antarctica, some 20 million years old.
It has taken more than 30 years to work through 3,700 meters of thick ice – drilling in temperatures as low as minus 80 centigrade. But it will have been worth it, if even half the claims being made about the lake are true. Sealed off below the ice for millions of years, the lake is a unique environment. “According to our research, the quantity of oxygen there exceeds that on other parts of our planet by 10 to 20 times. Any life forms that we find are likely to be unique on Earth,” says Sergey Bulat, the Chief Scientist of Russia’s Antarctic Expedition to Russian Reporter magazine. But there is one place not on Earth that has similar conditions – Europa, the mysterious satellite of Jupiter.
USA Today: Russian drillers reach huge lake below Antarctica