Science: Heat-Keen Bug Haunts Antarctic

Society | March 31, 2006, Friday // 00:00

Scientists have found traces of a heat-loving bacterium that probably lives beneath a frozen lake in Antarctica.

Lake Vostok is covered by more than 3 km of ice and is believed to have been isolated from our planet's atmosphere for millions of years.

The bacteria appeared in sediment mixed with a core of ice drilled by Russian and French researchers, BBC reported.

The heat-loving, or thermophilic, bacterium may suggest that hydrothermal vents exist on the lake floor.

Hundreds of lakes exist beneath the thick Antarctic ice sheet, but with an area of 14,000 sq km Vostok is by far the largest.

Because the ice lake sees no sunlight and has not been in contact with the atmosphere since it was covered with ice around 15 million years ago, scientists hope it might reveal the kind of life that could exist on other planets, or on Europa, the ice-covered moon of Jupiter.

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