NASA surprised: Shrimp swimming under Antarctic ice

William Atkins
Wednesday, 17 March 2010 01:38

Science - Biology

A NASA research team drilled an eight-inch hole into an Antarctic ice sheet and deployed a video camera over 600 feet down. To their utter surprise, they found a shrimp-like creature swimming around, oblivious to the fact that humans did not expect it could survive in such hostile conditions. Guess they were wrong!

 

Between November 9, 2009 and December 10, 2009, NASA scientist Robert Bindschadler, an Antarctic researcher based out of the Goddard Space Flight Center, led an expedition to Wrinless Bight, Antarctica.

Along with him were researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Navel Postgraduate School, and the University of Alaska.

Their goal was to drill an eight-inch wide hole through a 200-meter (650-foot) thick ice shelf and explore the hidden world underneath with a video camera system. They were over 12 miles (20 kilometers) from seasonally open water.

The results of their mission produced the first-ever photograph of the underside of an ice shelf.

However, to top it all off, the researchers also found a three-inch long "Lyssianasid amphipod" swimming around in waters they assumed would only harbor very simple life forms such as microbes

Lysianassidae is a family of amphipods (Amphipoda), which is an order of animals that includes over seven thousand species of shrimp-like crustaceans.

In fact, the orangish-colored creature swam to the camera, and clung to the cable of the camera system, for a close-up look at the strange-looking apparatus.

Page two continues with more information on this creature, and the NASA research. There is an amazing video, too, if you will read the rest of the story.