Life Endures 120,000 Years Under Ice

Boosting our chances of finding life in extreme extraterrestrial environments, a new ice-dwelling bacteria has been discovered in the glaciers of Greenland, where it has live for over 120,000 undisturbed, LiveScience reports. The bacteria – 10-100 times smaller than the more common E. coli bacteria – makes a living by exploiting the liquid water that flows through microscopic cracks in the ice.

“These very icy environments, the glaciers and permafrost, are great analogs for say Mars or Europa and even planets in solar systems we don’t even know about yet,” Penn State researcher Loveland-Curtze said.

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Source : LiveScience