Livin' Life to the Extremophile: Biodiversity (Part 4)

So, to quickly recap. In the last 3 days we have traveled several miles below to the Antarctic ice shelf to see what’s happening down there. We’ve visited the deep and mysterious cave systems of Romania and Mexico. We’ve even braved the icy cold depths of the Marianas Trench and stared through the looking glass at planets a billion miles away! What else is there to cover?

The wildlife of course.

You didn’t think I was just going to leave you hanging did you?! To wrap up our spotlight on Extremophiles and their unique habitats, it seems fitting that we spend some time talking about the locals. Here are some of the most bizarre creatures our planet has to offer, and what it means to the future of exploration.

(Fig. 1) The Olm, or Proteus. Note the lack of eyes and pigmentation

this is due to its habitat where there is almost no light

The Caves

What a strange looking creature right? That little guy picture above is called the Olm, or the Proteus, and like the American mudpuppy, it’s one of a kind. It is the only cave-dwelling Chordate that we are aware of at the time of this writing, and it’s not just his bizarre looks that set him apart from the rest.

Dubbed “Human Fish” in Slovenian by the local population this strange amphibian evolved in the caves below Slovenia for centuries. It’s noted in the 1860s by explorers but didn’t become a creature of study until most recently. It has three toes on its front feet and two on the back. Why? Reduction. See, when Mother Nature decides a creature no longer needs something to survive; it removes them in favor of something more necessary.

Like eyes for instance.

Because the Olm is primarily aquatic and lives in the perpetual blackness of underground cave systems the eyes have regressed over time, leaving the sockets covered in a layer of skin. Essentially the Proteus is blind but it still retains sensitivity to light. It has rudimentary lungs but these play second fiddle to the brightly colored red gills he sports like flowers on either side of his head. The reason these gills are so vibrant is because of the lack of pigmentation in the little guy’s skin. Because the oxygen rich blood is red in those areas, and the skin is practically transparent, you can see the bright coloration clearly.

But like a superhero this little guy sure can hear! Its other senses have strongly developed over time, making up for its lack of sight. The Olm can live for decades without food, sitting motionless on the floor of its watery home, but unlike other aquatic animals that exhibit this kind of behavior, the Olm can take off at blinding speeds at a moment’s notice whereas other creature’s out there that slow down their metabolic functions are more slow-moving.

So is this guy an Extremophile? I’d say so. While it doesn’t really live in battery acid water or null-oxygen environments, its ability to survive up to ten years on the lipids and sugars it manufactures in its liver I’d say put it there.

(Fig. 2) The glow-worms deadly web traps and the bioluminescent tail-

light of a glow-worm in a New Zealand cave

See that neat little light glowing there? Thought so. Ya, that’s the New Zealand Glow Worm, that crazy little guy sure is bright isn’t he? Bioluminescence, a process by which an organism exhibits light through production of a chemical in an organ, isn’t extremely uncommon in extremophiles. It makes sense when you think about it, most of these guys live in really dark environments, so it doesn’t hurt to have a lamp sometimes.

See those strings with what appear to be little beads of water accumulated on them? Those aren’t strings, per se. They’re actually traps! The glow worm is carnivorous. It traps other insects in the webs, like a spider’s actually, and then it sucks their internal organs out via chemicals that cause their prey to liquefy. Gnarly little fellas aren’t they? But it doesn’t stop there; there are more files on this extremophile.

See, the glow worm is a larval stage, and they’re kind of dumb. With their over-territorial nature and lack of distinction they will actually cannibalize each other if one roams into another’s territory. What’s even worse, when the fly hatches from the larval form, it will often follow the lights of its larval brothers, flying right into its own traps to be consumed. As I said, not very bright.

In its glowy worm stage of gestation the creature only has one goal. Eat and convert that food into proteins. Eventually, when it has consumed enough it will cocoon itself, much like a butterfly, that pupa eventually becomes the fly.

From the 31 unknown species they uncovered in Movile’s chemosynthesis based cave to the strange and bizarre blind fish the villagers of Villa Luz depend on every year there is peculiar life all around us. Next let’s see what they discovered when they ventured down into the depths of the Ocean.

The Vents

For the longest time scientists believed that the sun was the ultimate catalyst for life on Earth. After all, it powered the microbes and the plants via photosynthetic rays. This in turn allowed the plants to turn Carbon Dioxide into useful oxygen for us, in turn creating the very atmosphere we need to survive. The sun is pretty important, so it makes sense that we didn’t think life could exist without it.

This heliocentric view was nice, I mean, it wrapped everything up in a nice neat little ball for scientists everywhere, the problem? It was wrong. Yes, the sun is necessary for life on Earth to exist and without it we certainly wouldn’t be here but it’s not vital for all life. Life just needs energy, where it obtains that source of energy can be a testament to the true sustainability of life. What ALVIN discovered in the bottom of the Marianas Trench in the 70’s is still being heavily researched by scientists today, but what made this hardy ecosystem able to adapt to the extreme conditions found at the depths of the oceans?

(Fig. 3) Microbial Polyextremophile life around volcanic vents.

Marianas Trench

Piezophile, Thermophile, Extremophile, Polyextremophile, all these terms apply to this dense microbial mat covering hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the oceans. At the extreme depths of the trench the pressure is so high that if you were to try to swim down without a specially developed pressurized suit you would most assuredly be doomed to implode. Our bodies are not capable of producing the external pressure to survive at these depths, but these little guys pictured above, and many ichthyologic (fish) species can.

That’s what a Piezophile is. An organism capable of exerting the outward pressure necessary to not be crushed by forces pushing inward on it. But that’s not the only incredible feature of creatures able to live at these depths. The waters down there are usually very dark and cold, leading most predatory species to rely on other senses in order to feed. Also, as I stated earlier the microbes need some kind of energy to feed on as well. So what keeps those mats from drying up and dying out?

Tectonic plates and the core of planet to be exact. See, the bottom of the ocean is littered with what we call hydrothermal vents. These openings in the Earth basically spit out the superheated contents of the core, venting the pressure so our planet doesn’t explode. Naturally the contents have to very hot, but the pressure at these depths keep the water from reaching a vapor form (in other words, boiling point cannot be achieved) but the end result is a superheated area that can sustain the bacteria and other microbial organisms that have learned to adapt to it. The Piezo-Hydro-Chemolithautorophic-Thermophilic guys are so complex they are actually put into a category all their own.

The Polyextremophile, which is an organism exhibiting more than one quality of a standard extremophile. So you see now why these guys are still under such heavy study? Problems arise however when trying to remove these creatures from their native habitat. Changes in pressure, temperature, and chemical intakes cause specimens to rapidly decay leaving us to study them where they lay. But that’s not really such a bad thing, I mean, who doesn’t like a good swim?

Deep Waters

As we stated above the deep ocean is home to many strange species indeed, these areas that go miles below sea level where no light can reach are intensely cold and heavily pressurized. We used to think life couldn’t exist down there; here are some pictures so show just how wrong we were:

(Fig.4) Deep-sea Angler Fish

(Fig. 5) Deep-sea Angler Fish (Bioluminescent)

(Fig.6) The Mouthless Tube Worm

(Fig. 7) The Yeti Crab

So you see, in places like Lake Vostok we have discovered life (Cryophiles) and in the acidic waters of Yellowstone we have discovered entire ecosystems that we never thought could exist (Acidophiles). That is why it so important we explore every avenue for possible life. This is a growing field, every day we’re discovering more and more about these strange creatures that share our world.

That is what has made NASA so interested in all of this. If we can find life in these places, that survive off the methods they do when everything on our planet right now tells them they don’t even have to, imagine what we’ll find out in space where things have to evolve without the luxury of a lush atmosphere to fall back on evolutionarily. In the coming years the methods we use to cleanly extract and study these organisms will be vital to the coming mission on NASA’s and other space organizations rosters.

Are we going to find life as diverse on these other planets and moons as we do in the most unforgiving environments on our planet? I’m doubtful but I’d never rule it out. If life can evolve from a single-celled organism here then what’s to say it can’t there? The age of Anthropocentricism as at an end, now that we know what we should be looking for.

I don’t care who finds it, I just want it to be found. I firmly believe there is life out there in places like Io, Titan, and Europa. The key to finding it is locked away in these organisms right here that share this world with us. I’m just glad we’re finally opening the lock.

-Ryan Sanders

From “The Far Side” by the brilliant “Gary Larson”

Thank you all so much for reading this four part series I've put together. It took a lot of hard work and research to pull all of this together for you. I hope you've enjoyed it and come back in the future for more exploration into the wonderful world of science. Happy learning everyone!

-Sincerely,

              Ryan Sanders

Livin' Life to the Extremophile: Chemosynthesis (Part 3)

Greetings from Romania friend! Last time we talked about the distant planet Jupiter and her tantalizing moons that may or may not contain life. For now though, let’s put Europa, Io, Titan, and Enceledus on the back burner. Let’s talk about the creatures we recently discovered right here on Earth that live in places we originally never even thought to look for life.

In the first part we discussed Vostok Station and the skeptical past surrounding the historical outpost. Now we’re going to actually talk about the kind of creatures we can expect to find down there, and why avoiding surface contamination is absolutely essential in uncovering this fascinating alien world beneath our feet. We begin our journey in Romania with the discovery of an ancient cave by biologist Cristian Lascu.

From there we will be heading in the complete opposite direction. Instead of the bizarre albino insects of Molive cave we’ll be visiting the bizarre denizens of the deep around the vents of the Mariana Trench. Geothermal activity in this region plays a huge role in the evolution of sustainable life.

But it doesn’t just stop there. From pools of sulfuric acid in Yellowstone National Park, to strange non-pigmented air breathing detoxifying fish in Mexico, there is one thing that is incredibly evident in this peculiar little world of ours.

Life will always find a way.

Movile Cave – Romania

Movile Cave, Romania. A veritable hellscape to human beings. The air is thick with hydrogen sulfide and very little oxygen. In fact, the deeper you travel into its depths, the higher the likelihood you’ll need a respirator to keep breathing normally. That isn’t a problem for intrepid spelunker and biologist Cristian Lascu, who braved the harsh unforgiving environment to explore the world this cave system has kept hidden from us for hundreds of millions of years.

And what a find indeed! In what we would have ruled before as an uninhabitable climate he found life, and what’s more, the farther in he went, the more life he discovered, and the more diverse it would become. Centipedes, spiders, and other insects were present. What’s more is unlike other typical cave dwellers that tended to remain dormant and lethargic so as to conserve energy, these creatures were fast and highly active, as if there was no shortage of energy. But that was impossible, the cave was completely sealed off for a long, long time from outside intervention. What were these strange creatures using for energy in place of sunlight?

The answer lay in the water. Lascu dove into the underwater passageways and found that in a passageway that opened up to an air bubble there was a scum accumulated across the surface of the water. This scum, or biofilm as its more commonly referred to as, seemed to be the centerpiece for this self-contained ecosystem.

By a process called chemosynthesis these single-celled organisms were consuming the toxic chemicals in the water and converting them into energy. Their food chain made up the food chain for the insects food chain. Huh, funny how that whole circle of life thing works ain’t it? J. Chemosynthesis works a lot like photosynthesis does, except in place of sunlight as the catalyst a chemical component is used, in this case, hydrogen sulfate.

Marianas Trench – Pacific Ocean

That beautiful and expensive deep sea submarine is ALVIN and he’s more than just your average DSV. If it wasn’t for ALVIN the door to astrobiology wouldn’t have opened as quickly as it did. In 1977, scientists operating this little fellow around the Mariana Islands in between Japan and Australia found something that took their breath away.

Life.

Yes, the Mariana Trench, one of the coldest, highest pressured, darkest, and deepest places on our planet contains life. How incredible of a find indeed, and it wasn’t just of the microbial kind. Fish had adapted to the pressures, huge tube worms darted out at prey from the ocean floor, mussels lay scattered beneath ALVINs body. But what made this possible? Clearly these fish weren’t surviving by Chemosynthesis? That seemed highly unlikely.

Then it dawned on them. The geothermal vents along the ocean floor. The other incredible discovery that ALVIN had made. It had long been theorized that these openings from the Earth’s core existed, spewing super heated gases into the water as the tectonic plates shifted underneath. Microbes grew in mass along these vents, absorbing the super dense methane escaping the core. Methane, under normal circumstances is a gas, but as we learned on Titan, this isn’t always the case.

Even though the heat escaping these vents is enormously high, the water around them doesn’t boil. At these depths, the pressure is so high it raises the boiling point to unachievable levels. This phenomena is what keeps these microbes, the bottom of our seabed food chain, from burning up, and allows them the ability to reproduce and thrive in this hostile environment of the deep.

Yellowstone National Park – United States

            Astrobiology wasn’t the only new field brought about by these tiny single-celled marvels of life. In a whole other part of the world just ten years before, Dr. Thomas Brock was about to make a discovery that would turn the world of biology on its head. In The Great Fountain Region of Yellowstone National Park, was a whole new ecosystem just begging to be explored. One of the first to come out of this was Thermus aquaticus. A chemotroph (obtains its energy from chemical reactions rather than photosynthetic ones) that is also capable of sharing the photosynthesis of its cyanobacterial neighbors.

Not only had Dr. Brock just discover Hyperthermophiles, pioneered the future study of Extremophiles in general, but his discovery of T. aquaticus would later lead to breakthroughs in DNA fingerprinting analysis and the exciting new field of biotechnology!

But it wasn’t just this little Chemotroph that was new to the party. It turns out the bio mats found on the surfaces of such alkaline and sulfur rich water-sources was very similar to the mucous-like biofilm found on the water surface in Movile Cave. It was comprised of hundreds of microorganisms that had not only learned to adapt to their hostile environment, but actually had evolved to embrace it.

Cyanobacteria, Chemoorganotrophs, Green-sulfur bacteria, methanogens, gram-postive fermentative bacteria, these are some of the amazing new organisms they discovered that make up the complex ecological structure found here in Yellowstone. If life can take hold in a place like this, then perhaps life could thrive on Titan after all.

Cueva De Villa Luz – Mexico

The Villa Luz Cave. Found in Mexico this marvel has been featured on the BBC special “Planet Earth” in the past because it’s strange and diverse ecology. The air, much like Movile Cave’s, is rich is hydrogen sulfide, poisonous amounts actually. The difference is where Romania’s cave was sealed off, this one is open, by a main entrance and skylights throughout. However stalactites that hang from the ceiling are what help make the air unbearable, even with all the ventilation.

These unique stalactites, donned “snotties” by researchers give off a byproduct of the chemosynthesis. What is it you ask? Why sulfuric acid of course! This caustic substance hits the ground and as it melts through whatever it touches produces the noxious gases that fill the air, but this is just the start of the incredible and surprisingly well rounded ecosystem.

There is fish located here that has evolved within the dark depths. That’s not surprising since we discovered life living at the bottom of the Marianas Trench that we find a fish living in the dark. It also shouldn’t shock us that the “snotties” are constantly dropping acid bombs into the water effectively contaminating it with the stuff. But what should surprise us is how these fish are able to tolerate it.

Over time the Atlantic Mollies have developed a toxin screening system that allows them to breath and filter the water in the caves. This is a pretty remarkable development, but what’s even more incredible, they aren’t even the top of the food-chain in here! It turns out there’s an insect that preys on the mutated fish! Quite a turn of events if you ask me.

Another theory about their incredible immuno-system development comes from more recent scientists doing studies in the cave. The locals have long since incorporated the cave and the fish into their religious beliefs, using a poisonous mix of the Barbasco plant to kill them and bring them to the surface for easy harvest. Over time an immunity has begun to develop that these fish now seem to be passing on genetically to their offspring. Now that’s impressive.

Lake Vostok – Antarctica

I bet you  were wondering when I was going to get back to Lake Vostok. Well fret no more because here we are! Full circle! As of the time of this writing 3000+ species of organisms have been discovered living in the icy waters below. No new life has been found (contaminants only,sorry micro-geeks L) but the fact that life is down there at all is enough to make scientists everywhere go “hmm.”

It is truly incredible when you think about it. The water itself is assumed to be only 27 degrees F. This means that it’s below freezing. The only reason it stays in its liquid state they believe is because of geothermal heating underneath and the enormous pressures of the ice built up on top. The lake is essentially the creamy center of a geological Oreo.

Further analysis of the bacteria found in Lake Vostok will need to be undergone, but for now, it’s enough just to know that it’s down there. If bacteria can survive the inclimate conditions at the bottom of the ice shelf then it’s quite possible that it can survive the glacial temperatures likely to be found on Enceladus and Europa. Only time will tell.

In Conclusion

From “Nearing Zero” by the delightfully funny “Nick Kim”

         As I said earlier and as so hilariously somewhat discussed in the above comic, life will find a way to overcome and adapt every obstacle we or the world throws at it. The true test will be of whether or not we discover something new on Europa or on Titan. We’ve already seen some of the incredible ways they adapt, now let’s talk a second about how these things apply.

Europa is incredibly cold, but it has possible geothermic activity, the Marianas Trench is incredibly deep, dark, and cold. The pressures there would be unbearable for us but yet life has found a way to live harmoniously and in sync with the habitat. If we find similar features on Europa, it’s extremely possible that we find the signs of life that accompany those.

As for Titan, with its sulfurous and toxic surface it seems absurd for us to think of life being there, but then again they thought it was absurd for life to exist in places like Movile Cave and Ceuva De Villa Luz. We have methanogenic creatures right here on Earth and Titan is practically brimming over with liquid methane. It now seems even more improbably that life wouldn’t exist there considering.

Enceladus and Io may be dead ends, but we have found creatures thriving in the depths of volcanoes, and who knows. Perhaps there is a whole new kind of hyperthermophile out there that can survive even more severe conditions than the ones discussed in this article. Guess we won’t know till we get there, and I couldn’t be more excited to find out. J

-Ryan Sanders

For further reading on the places mentioned in this article and more on microbiology, you can follow any of the links below. Happy learning!

-       “Life In Hell” A great documentary on Hyperthermophiles and the main source for this article.

-       Various Collected Articles on Yellowstone and the Thermophiles that reside there.

-       Dr.Thomas Brock’s “Life at Extreme Temperatures” (I rank this up there with Dr. Gold’s “The Deep Hot Biosphere” Both excellent studies with lots of overlapping information)

-       “A Natural View of Microbial Biodiversity within Hot Spring Cyanobacterial Mat Communities” A Scientific journal discussing in part life in Yellowstone.

-       Scientific Journal on the ecology of Cueva de Villa Luz

-       News article about the locals and their religious ritual slowly evolving indigenous populace.

In the fourth and final installment of our spotlight on Extremophiles we’re going to talk about the processes of some of the creatures (and the creatures themselves) that live in the hostile environments described above. Some are strange, some are cute, some are terrifying, but every single one of them, from single-cellular to conscious and complex, is a unique window into the tenacity of life. 

Livin' Life to the Extremophile: Europa (Part 2)

The year is 2048. A tiny little dot is hurtling through space, making its descent into the orbit of a moon half a billion miles from our sun. As its thrusters slowly allow the heavy craft to alight on the -260 degree surface of this frozen wasteland Jupiter’s swirling gases stare back at it ominously; daring it to uncover the secrets she keeps buried miles below the surface.

The little craft wastes no time going to work as it deploys the autonomous exploratory robot Endurance. Using thermal technology he quickly bores his way through the miles of ice and into the frigid untamed waters below. After touching the bottom and finally proving what scientists have speculated for decades, that it is indeed a rocky mantle with geothermic activity due to its iron core, it activates its beacon and returns to the hole it bore in the surface. When it gets back to the craft it syncs up and sends its astounding data back to NASA, whatever it may be.

Whatever it may be indeed…

If NASA can hit this time frame, with a craft that not only survives the landing onto this icy moon orbiting the gas giant Jupiter it doesn’t matter if they find life or not to them. Just getting there was half of the accomplishment.

Right now technology isn’t quite there for us to be able to not only just land on Europa, but to drill through the ice without contaminating the specimens. Also, once the ice is bored and a path to the liquid center is discovered will Endurance be able to brave the sure to be insanely un-Earthlike temperatures beneath the glacial ceiling? These questions, amongst others, are ones NASA is hoping Vostok Station, and the pristine lake hidden beneath it can answer.

Universal Chaos

The image pictured above is called Conamara Chaos. It refers to the structure of the terrain on Europa. For a long time scientists have been trying to figure out how the geological features of Europa had formed. With surface temperatures being so cold and atmospheric conditions absent liquid water wouldn’t exist on the surface. Also, if it was solely due to the strain of its elliptical orbit around Jupiter than how would the scarring (which appears to have formed like the veins in ice shelves where water has thawed and refrozen) have formed?

The answer? They theorize that underneath that ice is liquid water. Beneath that water are sub-glacial volcanoes erupting through the rocky mantle. The volcanoes mean there is geothermic activity, which means it’s likely that the moon has an iron core.

This could also explain how the unique scarring on Europa’s surface had formed.

(Fig. 1) Surface scarring of Europa, similar to ice shelf in Antarctica on Earth

(Fig 2) Enhanced Satellite imaging of Wilkin’s Ice Shelf in Antarctica

No that second image isn’t just an enhanced picture of Europa’s surface, that’s right here on Earth. But it’s important to note the similarities in topographical formation. See how it appears that some of the ice has melted and refrozen, capturing larger untouched icebergs inside? That’s sort of how the surface of Europa appears, so you can see why scientists for so long believed the water had to have melted to cause the terrain to form like that.

However what’s really going on is what they now believe is a combination of factors. As the moon orbits Jupiter in its elliptical pattern it’s stretched out at certain points in its rotation. This stretching causes friction within the core (which as I stated before Europa’s core is believed to be much like our own) this friction causes the geothermic activity (volcanoes). The ice above these underwater explosives is heated, like Lake Vostok but not quite.

See where the lake under Vostok is touching the rocky ground of the Ocean that isn’t the case with these small geothermic lake formations. These little “pocket-lakes” form near the surface, causing what’s called a “slush matrix” to form, not quite thawed but not quite frozen. This creates a shifting, which when the volcano beneath stops erupting quickly refreezes, causing the unique chaotic X shaped patterns we see through our satellites lenses.

This terrain, and its formation, is known accordingly as Chaos Terrain Theory. As with most scientific articles this one isn’t particularly a riveting read, but the information contained within may give you a better understanding of Chaos Terrain Formation. You can read more here.

Europa isn’t the only one out there of extreme interest to scientists, but with everything going on in Antarctica right now it feels the most promising, that’s why it’s garnered so much attention as of late. However we’re going to talk about two planets in this article today. Jupiter and the Hula Hoop Champion of the Universe, Saturn.

Jupiter

Many Moons Ago…

Jupiter is quite the interesting planet floating around our humble little sun. It has over 60 moons. In fact when you map their orbit and show their trajectories the resulting pattern looks like the psychotic scribbling’s of a madman in the depths of a methamphetamine withdrawal. Don’t believe me? See for yourself :

(Fig 3) Jupiter and her moons. Orbital patterns are show in white tracings.

So with all of this activity, and all of the residual energy being given off by the gaseous reactions within their parent planet, it isn’t outside the realm of probability that extremophiles have found a home out in the depths of space. We’ve explored Europa, (So to speak) but now we’re going to briefly explore three of her other moons briefly before heading over to Saturn to see what those rings are made of.

Galileo Galilei

In 1610 when Galileo turned his telescope to the heaven’s there was no way he could know that four centuries later we would be gearing up to search for life on them. But he could see Jupiter, and because of the size of these four moons, Galileo is actually credited with the discovery of these celestial bodies. Those moons are:

·         Io

·         Ganymede

·         Callisto

·         Europa

For the purposes of this article, Ganymede and Callisto are relatively unimportant. The likelihood of either containing life is drastically reduced as there seems to be no chemical reactions on either moon at present. Being their distance from the sun is so great they contain little prospect. (However, they are amazing heavenly bodies and are worth checking out if you find some extra time.)

Io on the other hand could be worth looking into as well. Active volcanoes seem to shift magma around the surface. Even though beneath is a veritable molten hell world however, the planet’s surface would still be rather cold where geothermic activity isn’t taking place. But that’s not to say microbial life couldn’t exist there, we’ve found organisms on our planet living in the lava in active volcanic hotspots!

Don’t count little Io out yet, it ain’t Pluto!

Saturn

The Planet, The Moons, The Theory

Saturn, like Jupiter, has many moons, 62 to be exact. The planet spins so fast it actually looks like it’s getting pinched at the poles by some invisible force, causing it to bulge into a spheroid. The average day on this fast moving gas ball is around ten hours, and Saturn is probably the least dense planet in our solar system. But what makes this planet truly a unique spectacle to behold, its rings.

When NASA sent spacecraft, Cassini, out by Saturn they discovered something absolutely incredible. The rings weren’t asteroids, or gas, or one of the many other things they had assumed them to be. No, the rings were made from chunks of ice, free floating in an orbit around the gas ball. Some chunks were big as a mountain; some chunks are smaller than a grain of sand, but it’s there! Super frozen water!

But like Jupiter, it’s highly unlikely there will be life in this extremely hostile environment. It’s not to say this planet isn’t of interest to us still, just not for those purposes.

What is interesting, are her moons.

Titan

(Fig. 4) Titan and Geographical Landmarks

Titan: the largest moon of Saturn, and in my opinion, the second most promising chance we have of finding microbial life in our solar system beyond our own humble planet. Clocking in at over a billion miles from our sun, the amount of radiation he receives is significantly less than that of what we do but that’s ok, because Titan has a totally different way of doing things anyway.

What makes him so interesting to scientists is that for the longest time they were baffled by what appeared to be liquid water on the surface. That couldn’t be possible. Its distance from our sun suggests the temperature to be approximately -290 degrees F and if Europa taught us anything, it’s that H2O can’t sit in its liquid state at those temperatures. So this liquid couldn’t be water, what was it?

Super chilled methane and ethane. We have those here, (we even have some CRAZY organisms that survive off that stuff which we’ll discuss soon!) but on Earth, those two fuels are usually in a gaseous state. On Titan the stuff not only creates liquid lakes (thousands of them!) it rains from the sky and literally acts like water! From Cassini’s Saturn flybys we learned a lot the Hula Hooper and her spectators. From intrepid explorers here on Earth, we recently discovered that life can not only exist in these conditions, but thrive.

Titan will continue to be of interest to scientists as we move forward into the future but one of Saturn’s other moons helped gather the information to fuel these scientifically driven excitements. Let’s see what else Saturn has to offer us.

Enceladus

(Fig. 5) The Frozen Surface of Enceladus, Note the Impact Craters and Scarring

When Cassini flew by Enceladus in 2008, scientists were dumbfounded by what they discovered there. You thought raining methane like water was strange? Enceladus has sub-glacial cryo-volcanoes. Know what that means? Instead of lava they shoot ice. That’s one chilly rock in the sky. Being around the same distance as Titan and Saturn from the sun (around a billion miles) the surface, like Europa’s, is a snowy, permafrost coated wasteland. But even with these even more extreme conditions, could life persist? That’s what scientists are trying to find out. Unlike Europa though, Enceladus’ chances of having liquid water beneath are much lower than that of Jupiter’s frozen moon, but it’s still something we can’t rule out!

They piloted Cassini through one of the Cryo-volcanic eruptions to gather ice and snow particles. What they discovered was truly incredible. Hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and many other elements floating around in there! The essential building blocks of life were present even on what appeared to be a biologically inert orb in space.

What’s even better news? Unlike Europa it wouldn’t take months of planning and billions of dollars in specialized equipment to gather exciting samples from its surface. Just a scoop and a pail! Enceladus is covered in snow, that is constantly replenished by the volcanoes. If microbes can survive the depths of Mariana and Vostok then surely something could have evolved here!

So now you know all I know about these planets. (Well maybe not all. But at least the most important stuff.) Next we’re going to talk about some bizarre and hostile environments that until a few years ago we didn't even know existed on our very own planet. Wait until you meet these locals…

-Ryan Sanders

From “Calvin and Hobbes” by the brilliant “Bill Watterson”

For further reading on Europa, Io, Titan, and Enceladus, you can follow any of the links below. Happy learning!

-       A report directly from NASA and a panel of Scientists

-       An hour long documentary on Europa

-       A wonderfully written blog article about the Chaos Terrain Theory paper published in Nature magazine.

-       A NatGeo special called “Journey To Europa”

With the potential for the discovery of life on another world there are also a plethora of articles available on the internet (including Wikipedia which I've checked and they have fairly accurate data). As always, I encourage you to continue reading and to learn more about these mysterious worlds. After all, what could be more exciting than alien life?

Livin' Life to the Extremophile: Vostok (Part 1)

Alright, let’s settle one thing right away. When I say “life” in Antarctica I am not referring to human life, Ichthyologic, or even flora. I’m referring the resilient microbial kind. The kind of organisms that, good or bad, are all around you every day. Now I know some of you are like, “well that’s dumb…I thought we were gonna find a new species of fish or something cool like that.” Well I’m sorry if you feel that way, and if you do, you should turn back now, because this article is not written for you. Not that I have the attention of all you single-cellular eccentrics out there lets discuss a little bit about what I mean when I use the term “extremophile.”

Those of you not well versed in microbiology may not be familiar with the term. An Extremophile is a microbe capable of not just living, but thriving in environments we thought previously to be uninhabitable. Thermophiles have been discovered loving life in Yellowstone’s geysers, hyper-thermophiles have even been discovered in the depths of the ocean living along the vents of the ocean floor. Temperatures here would be insanely high, but the extreme pressure keeps the water from being able to boil by inhibiting vapor formation. These deep-water thermophiles survive off of super dense methane and other elements they can scrounge. The extreme heat is actually necessary to their survival, keeping the membranes loose so as to be able to stimulate reproduction.

In short…cool stuff.

It’s not nearly as cool as the thought of finding even more new life on our very own planet, especially in an environment as unforgiving as the frigid wasteland of Antarctica. It was here that the coldest temperature on Earth was ever recorded in the early 80s. (A whopping -89.2 degrees Celsius. That’s -128 degrees Fahrenheit for perspective. That’s ****ing cold!!!) For an organism to survive here, it would have to be extremely hardy. Hence the name, extremophile. A soldier of the microbial world if you will.

That’s why Lake Vostok has had many skeptics over the decades since its discovery. Many scientists (very reputable ones at that) have long since thought that because of the extreme temperatures on the surface, no life could exist below the two miles of ice separating Vostok Station from one of the last untouched bastions of pristine life on this planet. But then again, Lake Vostok itself came under criticism. In the beginning, when Vostok Station was built in 1957, they didn’t even know it was there.

A Cold History

Vostok Station is located 1,300 km inland. That’s a pretty remote hike for supplies, but this was essential to their research. Because of its closeness to the south geomagnetic pole it made it perfect for magnetosphere observation. It operated year round for 37 years and was temporarily shut down in 1994. (but we’ll get to why that happened in a later segment.) What really makes it unique is that it was accidentally built directly over the shallow end of Lake Vostok. Hidden beneath researchers for the next 17 years was what could possibly be the missing link to discovering life on another planet!

It wasn't until 1974 when a British flyover found something interesting. Underneath the ice they found mountains, which was to be expected, Antarctica was flash frozen after all, but suddenly there was a break in the mountains and a completely flat surface bounced back to their equipment leading them to only one conclusion…it had to be a lake. Scientists and geologists scoffed at the preposterous assumption. After all, how could a lake exist in such extremely low temperatures? Liquid water in those condition wasn't just improbable, it was impossible.

As humans time and time again prove to each other, it seems nothing is impossible. Not every scientist was convinced that this couldn't happen. Some geologists suggested that tectonic hot-spots underneath Antarctica had caused geothermic heating to occur. If this was the case then it was very likely a lake could exist down there. The heat from the core of the Earth coming up through vents beneath the ice would cause it to melt from the bottom up. After awhile you would have a pool of water, deep as the shifting of the plates beneath it. It would cause a pocket of air to heat up between the water and the ice shelf above. The temperature would be just enough to sustain the ice above from melting any further and to keep the water below from freezing back to solid. Geothermic insulation, sexy.

But that’s one theory. The other theory (and more likely in my opinion), is that the lake itself is over 30 million years old and flash froze over around 10 to 15 million years ago. If that’s the case then it is far more likely that there could be life down there then if the ice had just gradually melted from the bottom up over time. And if life does indeed exist down there, it could be very strange and exotic life. I mean, it would be millions of years old, if it had found a way to adapt to the sudden change in climate and reproduce over that time period we could learn so much more about the birth of this big blue rock we share the surface of.

Still, not everyone was convinced. So there the lake sat, beneath the workers building Vostok station in 1957, below the baffled British Airmen in 1974, until 1991. It would take almost two decades before Jeff Ridley, would break the baffling mystery of what lay miles below the Russian’s feet. Sometimes it just takes a while for technology to catch up.

 

(Fig. 1)

    You can imagine with such incredibly low temperatures that survival would take a dominant role in life at Vostok station. If you thought that, then you are correct.

(Fig. 2)

      As I mentioned before being that it’s so far inland it makes it difficult to get supplies to the station. The perilous journey would be undertaken from Mirny station, an outpost on the coastline of Antarctica. It wasn’t just being resupplied that was an issue either. Extreme cold plays hell with the human bodies complex systems. So how did the scientists keep warm?

Butter.

That’s right. Lots and lots of butter. They’d eat it by the stick. Butter is rich in fat. The cold causes the human body to burn its stores of fat and muscle in order to keep blood pumping through all the vital regions. The colder the weather, the faster your fat burns. With the carbohydrate rich butter and a little bit of vodka, the Russian scientists made the best of their stay at Vostok.

(Fig 1. Lake Vostok, satellite imagery)

(Fig 2. Lake Vostok in relation to Antarctica)

Uh, Houston…What Am I Looking At?

In 1991, working out of London, Jeff Ridley helped launch ERS-1 (European Remote-Sensing Satellite) into orbit and set it to work above Antarctica. What he found astounded him. The original fly over in the 70's was correct, there was in fact a body of water hidden beneath that thick sheet of ice. The massive size of it made it unmistakable. This discovery however raised even more questions than it answered. Now we know it’s there, how did it form? Does it have an external water supply feeding it? How old is it? Does it contain life?

It’s quite possible that it does. But how do they get down to it without contaminating it? That was the ultimate question. But as it turns out, the scientists here at Vostok on Earth weren’t alone…no, I’m not talking about aliens…well, not exactly.

See, NASA took an interest in Lake Vostok possibly containing life, and it wasn’t just because Ridley was using space imagery to identify it and they wanted to get in on the game too. It was because if microbial life was indeed possible in such extreme condition as Lake Vostok, then it could pave the way for programs to help discover the same kind of potential life existing right here in our very own solar system. Jupiter. She has many moons. Each one of them is interesting but because of the Antarctic expedition below the ice sheet, one moon has become of particular fascination. Europa. We’ll discuss that in further detail next time here at “To Infinity and…In Theory”.

Till then, have an extremophile day!

-Ryan Sanders

To Be Continued...On Europa ;)

For further reading on the history of Vostok Station and Lake Vostok, you can follow any of the links below. Happy learning!

-       A 50Minute Documentary on Vostok

-       StrangerDimensions

-       JeffRidley’s report of sub-glacial lake formations (PDF format)

-       More reading on the ERS-1