A BBC nature infotainment has inspired the search for life deep beneath Antarctica ’s glaciers . Although no live thing have yet been find , DNA of them has , increase the possibility that living has found a elbow room .
Dr Ceridwen Fraserof the Australian National University watched a “ frigid planet ” documentary featuring the ice caves of Mount Erebus . Along with other south-polar volcanoes , Erebus releases steam that hollow out enormous interlocking cave systems late under the icing .
“ It can be really warm inside the caves – up to 25ºC ( 77ºF ) in some cave , ” Fraser enunciate in astatement . “ You could break a t - shirt in there and be pretty comfortable . There ’s light near the cave mouths , and light filters deeper into some cave where the overlying ice is thin . ”
When she saw this , Fraser told IFLScience , she thought these “ looked like the sort of places life story might like . ” However , being hard to attain and harder to explore , the cave have n’t had many visitors , most of whom have been geologist . Although enceinte areas of moss would probably have been noticed , Fraser point out that “ survive things in Antarctica tend to be minor , and prosperous to pretermit if you ’re not a life scientist . ”Fraser has been trying to establish whether volcanoes enabled sprightliness to survive ice ages in Antarctica , and see an opportunity to search their persona today . She key that some biologist specializing in bacteria and fungi had organized for samples of regolith from the cave floors to be brought back for analysis . When she looked more broadly speaking , most of the deoxyribonucleic acid she establish came from plants or animals . This does n’t mean the caves currently host life , Fraser stressed inPolar Biology . Her find could be legacies from long - gone ecosystem or dead cloth that blow in from elsewhere .
Nevertheless , carbon monoxide - authorProfessor Laurie Connellof the University of Mainesaid : “ The next steps will be to take a closer look at the cave and search for living organisms . If they exist , it opens the door to an exciting new domain . ”
The ice caves ’ sizes are unknown , but it is thought that huge meshing of interlocking chambers exist in several locating . Moreover , Fraser tell IFLScience that the magma chambers of some Antarctic volcanoes are so large , they ride out hot for hundreds of thousands of year . This means the cave may last long enough for complex ecosystems to evolve , even at the , shall we say glacial , pace at which south-polar life tends to move . The interconnection could also enable lifeforms to move from one cave to another , outlasting any specific fix .
Besides shedding light on Fraser ’s workplace on survival during methamphetamine hydrochloride historic period , anything we get wind may have implications for life in colder part of the Solar System .
