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Russia claims success in Antarctic drilling
Russian scientists are reporting success in their quest to drill into Lake Vostok, a huge body of liquid water buried under the Antarctic ice, the BBC reported.
Life forms found in the waters under the glacial ice of Lake Vostok are thought to be similar to possible life forms existing outside the Earth's atmosphere
It is the first time such a breakthrough has been made into one of more than 300 sub-glacial lakes known to exist in Antarctica.
Researchers believe Vostok can give them some fresh insights into the frozen history of Antarctica.
They also hope to find microbial lifeforms that are new to science.
The drilling project has taken years to plan and implement. The lake's location in the heart of East Antarctic Ice Sheet is one of the most inhospitable places on Earth.
The lowest temperatures in the world were recorded at Lake Vostock at minus 89C on 21 July 1983.
Vostok Station was first set up in 1956. However, it was only in the 1970s when, with the help of radar, British scientists first started to suspect there might be something underneath all the ice.
Further geophysical survey data then established the true scale of the sub-glacial feature.
With an area of 15,000 square km and with depths reaching more than 800m, Lake Vostok is similar in size to Lake Baikal in Siberia or Lake Ontario in North America.
More than 300 such bodies of water have now been identified across Antarctica. They are kept liquid by geothermal heat and pressure, and are part of a vast and dynamic hydrological network at play under the ice sheet.
Some of the lakes are connected, and will exchange water. But some may be completely cut off, in which case their water may have been resident in one place for thousands if not millions of years. Russian researchers will try to establish just how isolated Lake Vostok has been. If it has been sealed then micro-organisms new to science are very likely to have evolved in the lake.
Nonetheless, there will be concerns about introducing contamination, and there have been criticisms of the methods used by the Vostok drilling team.
The Vostok project is one of a number of similar ventures being undertaken on the White Continent, with projects being undertaken by the British and the Americans.
The projects are of particular fascination to astrobiologists, who study the origins and likely distribution of life across the Universe.
Conditions in these Antarctic lakes may not be that different from those in the liquid water bodies thought to exist under the surfaces of icy moons in the outer Solar System.
Places like Europa, which orbits Jupiter, and Enceladus, which circles Saturn, may be among the best places beyond Earth to go to look for alien organisms.
