A new scientific research illuminates the answer to this question. In a study published in Nature Communications, scientists discovered incredible microorganisms in the melted ice oaks in Antarctic. This finding suggests that life in such ponds can survive in the cryogenic period, in which the average temperature went back to -50 ° C about 635 to 720 million years ago.
According to Fatima Husain, the main author of the study, the fossil records of this time show that complex life forms exist both before and after. There were different theories about how life survived these extreme cold; In some parts of the oceans, for example, it was assumed that it is stored in the hydrothermal chimneys in deep sea or under thick layers of ice. Now tiny, melted ice ponds around the equator are offering a new shelter.
Hidden variety in ice oaks
These ponds may ultimately have served as a kind of protection for eukaryotes that develop into mult cell organisms and people. Even today there are similar melted ice ponds on the edges of the ice layers in the Antarctic.
In 2018, a research team from New Zealand examined the McMurdo ice sheet in Antarctic. Here, on the bottom of this pond with just a few meters wide and less than a meter deep, they discovered the colored germ layers and the layer layers over the years. These layers consisted of single -celled organisms, which were called cyanobacteria as resistant to excessive conditions. However, researchers found signs that there were eukaryotes such as algae or microscopic animals in these ponds. This shows that it has an astonishing living variety, depending on the amount of salt contained in the ponds. Husain “even two ponds didn't look like each other,” he said, examining all eukaryotes in all groups that they come across different groups. This shows that these unique environments can contain different shared apartments, even if they are close together.
An important teaching for the search for extraterrestrial life
These results have important consequences for the search for extraterrestrial life. “The examination of these special environments on earth can help us understand potential livable environments in ice -cold worlds, such as satellites covered with ice cream in our solar system,” says Husain.
Although Saturn's satellites and Jupiter Europa -Satellite are covered with ice, scientists are finding more and more evidence that simple ways of life can exist here. Therefore, various space tasks were initiated to examine these satellites more closely. The discovery of life in these icing on earth gives us valuable information about how we can search for possible signs of life in space.
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