Researchers Drilling Thousands of Meters Into Frozen Antarctic Lake
January 19th, 2012Cthulhu for President
Via: Science Magazine:
Along with all the festivities surrounding the anniversary of explorer Robert Falcon Scott’s reaching the South Pole on 17 January 1912, Antarctic researchers are at the edge of their seats waiting for news that will merit another celebration. The centennial coincides with an expected new landmark: This week, a Russian team drilling into Lake Vostok in the center of the Antarctic continent is likely to break through the ice to water. It will be the first time that a subglacial lake has been breached. These modern-day explorers hope to discover whether Vostok, which at 5000 km 3 is the third largest lake on the planet, is teeming with hidden, cold-loving life that could have evolved separately from the rest of the world for hundreds of thousands of years.
Or perhaps an alien spaceship with a nasty shape-shifting creature bent on consuming human DNA and morphing into a Destroyer of Worlds… but I digress.
I’m honestly intrigued by this one. Intense curiosity coupled with an unexpected level of hope, and I’m not entirely sure why.