"We were indeed surprised by finding microbial life at María Elena South," Dr. Armando azua-Bustos, a research scientist at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science in Santiago, who was involved in the discoveries, told The Huffington Post in an email.
Murray, A. E. et al. Microbial life at −13 °C in the brine of an ice-sealed Antarctic lake.
"A subsurface ocean at Europa potentially provides all conditions for microbial life — at least life we know," study lead author Lorenz Roth, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, told SPACE.com.
The stunning images, which blend art and science, also comprise the exhibit "World in a Drop: Photographic Explorations of Microbial Life" at the Harvard Museum of Natural History through Jan .7. Stained Pseudomonas aeruginosa colony biofilm grown in the laboratory (left); signature image of the "World in a Drop" exhibit, taken on a blade of grass in the Arnold Arboretum.
The human body isn't besieged; it's saturated, infused with microbial life at every level.
If so, the argument could easily be made that microbial life at least must be very common if it occurred twice in one solar system.
These evolutionary bottlenecks carry clear but distinct implications for microbial life at the YNP surface (phototrophic and chemotrophic) versus those in the subsurface (exclusively chemotrophic).
Scientists hope that new data pointing to microbial life at Vostok will help convince their governments of the mission's importance.
The authors suggest that although the microstructures analyzed are not microfossils, the presence of carbonaceous material in the surrounding matrix is consistent with the existence of microbial life at the time and with evidence of early Archaean life found at other sites.
"Microbial Life: A Universe at the Edge of Sight" is at the Harvard Museum of Natural History through Sept. 2, 2019.
P. B. Price, "Microbial life in Martian ice: a biotic origin of methane on Mars".
