Η κάμερα των ερευνητών εντόπισε και κινηματογράφησε σε βάθος 200 μέτρων στο εσωτερικό του παγετώνα ένα πλάσμα που μοιάζει με γαρίδα το οποίο στη θέα της κάμερας όχι μόνο δεν φοβήθηκε, αλλά την πλησίασε και στάθηκε πάνω στα καλώδιά της. Αμέσως μετά η κάμερα εντόπισε μια μέδουσα που ''χόρευε'' μέσα στο απόλυτο λευκό περιβάλλον όπου ζει. Η ανακάλυψη άφησε έκπληκτους τους επιστήμονες, αφού ως σήμερα πιστευόταν ότι σε αυτές τις ακραίες συνθήκες, όπου κυριαρχεί το μόνιμο ψύχος και το απόλυτο σκοτάδι, τα μόνα που ίσως καταφέρνουν να επιβιώνουν είναι κάποια μικρόβια.
Το γεγονός ότι τόσο αναπτυγμένες μορφές ζωής μπορούν να επιβιώνουν σε τέτοιες συνθήκες αναπτερώνει τις ελπίδες των επιστημόνων ότι σύνθετες ή και ανεπτυγμένες μορφές ζωής πιθανόν είναι να βρίσκονται σε διάφορες περιοχές του ηλιακού μας συστήματος, όπως στην Ευρώπη και στον Εγκέλαδο. Ως γνωστόν, οι δύο δορυφόροι του Δία και του Κρόνου αντίστοιχα καλύπτονται από μόνιμα στρώματα πάγου, αλλά κάτω από αυτά κρύβονται πιθανότατα μεγάλες θάλασσες ή και ωκεανοί μέσα στους οποίους δεν αποκλείεται να έχουν αναπτυχθεί και εξελιχθεί διάφορες σύνθετες μορφές ζωής.
Μάλιστα, όπως δείχνει η τελευταία ανακάλυψη, δεν αποκλείεται κάποιοι οργανισμοί να ζουν και μέσα στους πάγους.
Μάλιστα, όπως δείχνει η τελευταία ανακάλυψη, δεν αποκλείεται κάποιοι οργανισμοί να ζουν και μέσα στους πάγους.
Watch the video on YouTube - TheEpirotica Channel
English version
At a depth of 600 feet beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet, a small shrimp-like creature managed to brighten up an otherwise gray polar day in November 2009. Bob Bindschadler of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., remembers the day well. He and his team were on a joint NASA-National Science Foundation expedition to examine the underside of the ice sheet when they found the pinkish-orange creature swimming beneath the ice.
"We were like little kids huddling around, just oohing and aahing at this little creature swimming around and giving us a little show", said Bindschadler. "It was the thrill of discovery that made us giddy; just totally unexpected".
The complex critter was identified as a Lyssianasid amphipod, about three inches in length. It was found beneath the 180-meter (590-foot) thick Ross Ice Shelf in Windless Bight, 20 miles northeast of McMurdo Station. Bindschadler and his team drilled an eight-inch diameter hole through the ice so that Alberto Behar of N.A.S.A.'s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, could submerge a small camera to obtain what are believed to be the first images of the underbelly of an ice shelf.
"This is the first time we've had a camera able to look back up at the ice. This probe is an upgrade to the original. It has three cameras – down, side and back-looking. The back-looking camera saw the shrimp-like animal", said Behar. The drilling in Windless Bight was part of the team's preparation for upcoming field studies 1000 miles from McMurdo where the Pine Island ice shelf is rapidly thinning and Antarctic ice is swiftly sliding off the continent, raising sea level. Bindschadler and his team want to find out why.
Behar designed the original N.A.S.A. borehole camera apparatus in 1999. It's now seen six deployments with British, Australian and American science teams in Antarctica, Greenland and Alaska. He'll take this new camera rig to Pine Island with Bindschadler and others, and hopes to eventually probe into Antarctica's mysterious sub-glacial lakes. There he'll attach a fiber-optically tethered micro-submarine with high-resolution camera, "so we can swim within the lake".
The rig, originally developed by N.A.S.A., has proven to be invaluable to science teams around the world. "We wouldn't be able to use it in the places we've gone without collaboration with the National Science Foundation and our British and Australian partners, among many others", said Behar. "When we get to Pine Island we'll be able to look at the sea floor. We couldn't do it this time because the cavity was deeper than we expected, but we'll have a kilometer of cable at Pine Island".
N.A.S.A.-funded scientists have long studied life in extreme environments. From astrobiology to extremeophiles and survivophiles, the search for life in harsh places has led to a smorgasbord of discoveries seemingly ripped from the pages of science fiction. The Antarctic amphipod has gotten scientists talking again: if life-forms as complex as these can survive deep within sub-glacial waters could they survive in other unusual and unfriendly environments in space?
Behar, also known for his work on robotic exploration of Mars, remarked, "The real benefit of these exploration programs is that you go in not knowing what you're going to find and you get surprised. It makes it worth all the trouble putting everything together when you find something new that you didn't expect".
Πηγές / Sources: To Vima, N.A.S.A.
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