Scientists Search for Life Under Antarctic Ice

Scientists Search for Life Under Antarctic Ice

With the temperature at a balmy midsummer -17c, drilling has started in Antarctica in an attempt to find evidence of life under a sheet of ice two miles thick.

The scientists and engineers from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) hope to find signs of life in the pitch black, intensely cold, nutrient poor, and pristine waters of Lake Ellsworth, which lies deep below sea level and has been isolated from the rest of the world for at least 100,000 years, but probably much longer. Sediment and water samples may tell them if life on Earth is possible in such extreme conditions – and they will be just as interested if they learn it is not, and that they have found the limits of life.