Life Found Deep Under Antarctic Ice for First Time?
U.S. scientists discover microbes in lake a half-mile under the surface.
Last week, a team found and collected microbes in a lake hidden under more than a half-mile of ice. (Related: "Race Is On to Find Life Under Antarctic Ice.")
Among other things, the discovery may shed light on what lies under the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
The newfound life-forms have little connection to life on the earth's surface and many apparently survive by "eating rocks," team member Brent Christner said in an interview from the U.S. McMurdo Station, after spending several weeks working at a remote field site at Lake Whillans.
That may explain how life on other celestial objects—such as on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn—survive in the absence of available carbon.
"The conditions faced by
