Discovered a new life on Earth – Bonavista

18.10.2016, 01:55

In early October, Russian scientists reported the discovery of a unique, according to them, the body in the subglacial lake Vostok in Antarctica. Found a bacterium has genetic similarity with modern science, living beings only 86 percent.

Lake Vostok, drilling of which was discovered a bacterium, is the largest subglacial body of water on the mainland. The thickness of the ice, under which there is liquid water, is approximately four kilometers. The length of the lake — more than 175 kilometers, a width of approximately 65 km, depth — up to 1.2 kilometers. The total volume of water in it exceeds 6.1 thousand cubic kilometers, which is only 3.5 times less than in lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake in the world. Station “Vostok”, after which the lake got its name, is located on the Northern edge of the ice pond.

the Borehole 5G-1 began to develop at the Vostok station in 1989 by the joint efforts of the Soviet, French and American scientists. The surface of the lake, the scientists reached in 2015, raising from a depth of 3767,57 meter on the surface of the earth two ice core.

“the frozen on the drilling crown water was found absolutely no known bacteria, it is called w123-10″, — said the head of the laboratory of cryostability Petersburg nuclear physics Institute named after Boris Konstantinov geneticist Sergei Bulat.

the Creature w123-10 was may second the bacterium found in the drilling of lake Vostok. The first one was opened in 2004 by Russian and French scientists, who at depths 3607 3561 meters and found the signal thermophilic beta-proteobacteria Hydrogenophilaceae thermoluteolus. These depths are separated by a layer of ice whose age differs by approximately five thousand years. Being Hydrogenophilaceae thermoluteolus, as studies have shown, comfortable lives at temperatures around minus 50 degrees Celsius. These organisms discovered in the ice of the first type — the so-called top ice, in contrast to the lower ice of the second type is not located directly at the surface of the lake.

Previously, scientists have reported on the findings in the ice of the southern continent for unknown organisms. In 2013, experts reported the discovery in the samples from lake Vostok unknown to science DNA, but then denied this information. It should be noted that most of the information about the traces of microorganisms obtained on the basis of statistical data, which is difficult to distinguish between the presence of a truly unique organisms introduced from outside.

If life really is in the subglacial lake Vostok, it is likely to is very peculiar. Similar conditions for potential organisms, scientists believe, exist in the sub-ice oceans of Jupiter’s moons (Ganymede, Callisto and Europa) and Saturn (dione and Enceladus) as well as at the poles of Mars. A study of the East allows astrobiologists already on the Ground much to learn about potential life in the cold worlds of the Solar system.

Source: lenta.ru