World holds its breath for Russian scientists drilling in Antarctic - as they try to find 'alien' underground lake before Tuesday 'date of no return' Somewhere, Peter Jackson salivates. The Daily Mail. Excerpts:
The scientific community is holding its breath for a team of Russian scientists that has been out of contact with colleagues in the U.S for six days, as they drill into a lake buried beneath the Antarctic ice for 20 million years.
They have to evacuate their station by Tuesday - when winter proper kicks in and temperatures start to drop to an inhospitable minus 90C.
The scientists are currently battling conditions of up to minus 66C at Lake Vostok as they raced to drill into a lake buried two miles beneath the ice before the weather closed in.
They were hoping water in the lake, the most inhospitable region of the planet, would reveal more about ancient life on our planet - but they have fallen silent just days before the deadly winter is due to begin.
Nice, horror movie setup here..
Their radio silence has chilling echoes of classic horror film The Thing, where scientists dig up a buried spacecraft in the Antarctic ice, only to unleash an extraterrestrial horror within.
Geothermal heat under the ice keeps the lake liquid, and its conditions are often described as 'alien' because they are thought to be akin to the subterranean lakes on Jupiter's moon Europa.
The water inside the lake will have had no contact with man-made pollutants or Earthly life forms for millions of years.
..
Valery Lukin, chief of the Russian Antarctic Expedition, said last month: 'We do not know what is waiting for us down there.'
Bonus "Nothing to see here--move along" statement:
But he (John Priscu, a Montana State University Antarctic researcher) insists the Russians are not lost.
'I can assure you that they are not lost or out of contact,' he wrote in an email to Foxnews,com. 'I never said the Russians were lost.'
He said they were 'working round the clock and trying to reach their goals as winter approaches. I completely understand why there are not communicating as frequently in the past.
'What I can tell you is that they are doing something that has never been done before — think of it, sampling a lake under 2.5 miles of ice at a location that is the highest, driest and coldest desert on our planet.
'I don't think there's anything sinister or ominous,' he added. 'The Russians have their own way of dealing with things, particularly the media, which I respect.
'There is nobody to call.'
I hope they bring back a really big alien or UFO, not some lame-ass ancient microbial contagion that kills everybody without us seeing it! What fun would that be? None! No fun whatsoever!
The scientific community is holding its breath for a team of Russian scientists that has been out of contact with colleagues in the U.S for six days, as they drill into a lake buried beneath the Antarctic ice for 20 million years.
They have to evacuate their station by Tuesday - when winter proper kicks in and temperatures start to drop to an inhospitable minus 90C.
The scientists are currently battling conditions of up to minus 66C at Lake Vostok as they raced to drill into a lake buried two miles beneath the ice before the weather closed in.
They were hoping water in the lake, the most inhospitable region of the planet, would reveal more about ancient life on our planet - but they have fallen silent just days before the deadly winter is due to begin.
Nice, horror movie setup here..
Their radio silence has chilling echoes of classic horror film The Thing, where scientists dig up a buried spacecraft in the Antarctic ice, only to unleash an extraterrestrial horror within.
Geothermal heat under the ice keeps the lake liquid, and its conditions are often described as 'alien' because they are thought to be akin to the subterranean lakes on Jupiter's moon Europa.
The water inside the lake will have had no contact with man-made pollutants or Earthly life forms for millions of years.
..
Valery Lukin, chief of the Russian Antarctic Expedition, said last month: 'We do not know what is waiting for us down there.'
Bonus "Nothing to see here--move along" statement:
But he (John Priscu, a Montana State University Antarctic researcher) insists the Russians are not lost.
'I can assure you that they are not lost or out of contact,' he wrote in an email to Foxnews,com. 'I never said the Russians were lost.'
He said they were 'working round the clock and trying to reach their goals as winter approaches. I completely understand why there are not communicating as frequently in the past.
'What I can tell you is that they are doing something that has never been done before — think of it, sampling a lake under 2.5 miles of ice at a location that is the highest, driest and coldest desert on our planet.
'I don't think there's anything sinister or ominous,' he added. 'The Russians have their own way of dealing with things, particularly the media, which I respect.
'There is nobody to call.'
I hope they bring back a really big alien or UFO, not some lame-ass ancient microbial contagion that kills everybody without us seeing it! What fun would that be? None! No fun whatsoever!
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