There are plenty of corners of our planet that remain unexplored, and whether it be searching the deepest oceans or climbing the highest mountains, Mother Earth has kept many secrets over her 4.5 billion-year lifespan. As scientists continue to unlock her mysteries, there are still discoveries that leave us baffled. One of the biggest (quite literally) mysteries is Antarctica's Lake Vostok.
Located on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS), Lake Vostok is buried some 13,100 ft beneath the ice and could date back as far as 35 million years. As the world's 16th largest lake (by surface area), Lake Vostok also enters the history books as its largest subglacial lake.
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Although Russian geographer Andrey Kapitsa speculated about a subglacial lake in that region during Soviet Antarctic Expeditions in 1959 and 1964, Lake Vostok wasn’t officially confirmed until 1993.
Split into two basins that are separated by a ridge, the northern basin has liquid water that's around 400 meters deep and reaches 800 meters deep in the southern basin. There's a debate over the age of Vostok Lake due to ice just above it being dated to around 400,000 years, but others suggest it could go back to the formation of the EAIS some 35 million years ago.
Research is relatively new, and it was only in 2013 that Russian scientists managed to pull a core of freshly frozen lake ice. As that sample was contaminated with the Freon and kerosene used to stop the borehole from freezing, they had to go back to gain a 'pure' sample in 2015.
There are hopes that a team will eventually be able to lower a probe to reach water samples and even sediment from the base of Lake Vostok.
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Scientists are only just scratching the surface of this buried ecosystem, but as research continues, Lake Vostok could help shape our continued visits to the stars and hopes of learning more about planets like Jupiter and Saturn.
Importantly, the conditions in Lake Vostok are thought to be similar to the ice-covered oceans that astronomers think lie buried on Jupiter's moon of Europa and Saturn's moon of Enceladus. There are hopes that continued drills down to Lake Vostok can aid our search for life on ice-covered worlds out in the cosmos.
2013 research published in PLOS ONE reports on 3,500 different DNA sequences that were extracted from the layers of ice just above the surface of Lake Vostok. Although 95% of these were bacteria, 5% pointed to more complex lifeforms. Some of the bacteria found is typically found in fish guts, leading to speculation that it's come from fish found in Lake Vostok. Even though the exact age of Lake Vostok remains a mystery, there are theories that it contains a unique ecosystem that's changing conditions mean lifeforms evolved differently from the rest of Earth.
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Don't expect some out-there alien fish that might also be lurking on Europa and Enceladus, but until we know what exactly is down there, you never know.