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What would happen if you drilled a hole straight through the ice in Antarctica and jumped in?
There's something crazy down there.
So what happens is you jump in and the snow around you quickly changes to dense blue ice.
As you go deeper, you realize the air bubbles trapped all around you are from the time of the Renaissance on the surface, then ancient Rome, then the last Ice Age, but the pressure keeps rising, and you keep getting closer to Earth's hot core.
So 4 km down, the ice suddenly turns to water.
You're inside a lake.
A massive lake, trapped completely under the surface, sealed off from the rest of the world for at least 15 million years.
So, inside that lake, you might see life forms that have been evolving in total isolation.
We know it's there because scientists bounced the radio waves through the ice and spotted this smooth, flat line, meaning liquid water.
And in 2012, a Russian team finally reached it with a special drill, but right as the water was going to rush into the borehole, they stopped and they let a tiny bit of lake water freeze in that hole and brought the ice up for study.
And they found some unusual bacterial DNA, but nothing conclusive yet about more complex animals.
Scientists want to go back, but it's controversial.
They worry about contamination, but we now know that there are over 400 lakes down there, and something else, if you want to know what, follow for more.
What would happen if you drilled a hole straight through the ice in Antarctica and jumped in?
You jump in and the snow around you quickly changes to dense blue ice. As you go deeper, you realize the air bubbles trapped all around you are from the time of the Renaissance on the surface, then Ancient Rome, then the last Ice Age!
But the pressure is rising and you’re getting closer to Earth’s hot core, the ice suddenly turns into…
To find out what it is, follow along!
#Antarctica #ice #mystery #science