Discovery: Fish Live Beneath Antarctica | Hacker News Reader

Discovery: Fish Live Beneath Antarctica

scientificamerican.com

84 pointsr0h1n16 comments

If anything, this is just piles on hope (for me) that we'll eventually discover life on other planets that live in conditions we originally expect to be much too harsh to support life.

It seems our definition of life, or the conditions required for if to exist, are constantly challenged. From thermal tubes to 850 km from sun light, complex life forms exists in some harsh places. I'm willing to bet that we haven't even scratched the surface of the insane conditions under which life outside our understanding is able to survive and thrive.

Yeah, but liquid water is probably required.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whillans_Ice_Stream

Mentioned in the article, "feeds" the Ross Shelf from the ice on land. Has two earthquakes every day for unknown reasons.

> But Deep-SCINI also encountered... a handful of other marine invertebrates that the team has so far declined to describe.

Why would they decline to describe some animal? That's an odd way to put it.

The only reason I know that deep sea ecosystems are considered sensitive is if the presence of species suggests oil. E.g., diatom fossils.

Another possible reason is suggested by the fact that the sentence sounded like a line from H. P. Lovecraft.

So, are those fish residents of that area? Or did they happen to just wander in? If it's typically pitch black there, why would they still have eyes?

Perhaps they migrated there through evolutionary pressure, and/or there's phosphorescence that we didn't see because of our giant camera light.

Well if they weren't blind they definitely are now with that probe shining bright lights in their eyes. Assuming they were adapted for really low levels of light, they might just be vestigial.

That bothered me too. Perhaps there's an underground tunnel connecting that area with the ocean?

IMHO that almost has to be the case. There is no reason for anything down there to have eyes.

Because time is a continuum.

Neat. Perhaps Europa has something similar.

It might, but keep in mind the history of the planet. Those fish more likely came from a species that already existed in warmer waters. Over the course of time they slowly drifted in and adapted. Then they could be shut off from the outside world and still thrive due to their earlier adaption.

I wonder what the ethical implications would be if we found out for certain that Europa was a barren world with a salty ocean under the ice, and then dumped a few tons of marine life into it.

I would argue that it would be our duty, given that we value life and intelligence.

Nice to see Montana State University showing up in this story. Go Bobcats!

The Solar Physics group has had some great work published in the past, but having the Priscu[1] group getting results like this is also amazing. Kind of funny, that they're in the College of Agriculture and working in Antarctica.

[1] - http://www.montana.edu/priscu/

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