The water here is characterized by low oxygen content, sub-zero temperature and high salt content.
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Scientists again managed to find life in an environment that would be as unsuitable for most organisms living on our planet. In the source Lost Hammer, located in the Canadian Arctic, reports Science Alert.
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It is fed by waters that pass through a 600-meter layer of permafrost, the temperature of the water in it drops below zero, it has a low oxygen content and a high salt content. But, despite everything, scientists managed to find microbes that live in salt water that seeps through the permafrost. And this may indicate the possible existence of life on Mars, Europa or Enceladus.
Finding extraterrestrial life is very difficult. Scientists believe that the most optimal path for the search will be to focus on environments that overlap as much as possible with worlds that can support life. At first glance, sea worlds such as Jupiter's moon Europa or Saturn's moon Enceladus have little in common with the Martian desert. But there are characteristics that will be common to them.
Available evidence suggests that extremely cold salty oceans may be hiding under the icy shells of Europa and Enceladus. Mars may also have liquid salt lakes locked beneath its surface. These environments are probably hypersaline. Since salts lower the freezing point of water, it probably drops below freezing. And it is more than possible that they have very little oxygen.
Recently, scientists found evidence that very salty lakes may be hiding under the southern polar cap of Mars. Although this discovery is still a matter of debate, if the lake exists, it is very similar to the source of the Lost Hammer.
Water seeps from the depths of permafrost, its oxygen saturation does not exceed 1%, and salinity – 24%, the temperature drops to minus five degrees Celsius. It would seem impossible to live in such conditions, but the microbe somehow manages it.
Scientists sought to find out whether life could exist in the source of the Lost Hammer, since it is similar to the supposed salty lakes of Mars. According to the study's lead author Elise Mangusson of McGill University in Canada, it took several years of working with sedimentary rocks before researchers were able to identify active microbial communities.
The next step was to characterize these communities. To do this, the team sequenced the fragments of genetic material found in the samples and separated them into many microbes belonging to different known microbial phyla. Most of the microorganisms discovered were new to science and had special characteristics that helped them survive in an inhospitable source.
“The microbes we found and described at Lost Hammer Spring are remarkable because, unlike other microorganisms, they do not depend on organic material or oxygen for life. Instead, they survive by feeding on and inhaling simple inorganic compounds such as methane, sulfides, sulfate, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide, all of which are found on Mars. They can also capture carbon dioxide and nitrogen from the atmosphere, making them highly adapted to both survive and thrive in very extreme conditions on Earth and beyond,” said microbiologist Lyla White of McGill University.
< Next, the team plans to grow and study some of the most active members of the microbial community to try to learn more about how they have adapted to life in such an inhospitable environment. According to the researchers, this information can help us better understand the probability of the appearance of such organisms in places such as Mars.
Earlier a team of scientists from New Zealand found that under the ice shelf of Antarctica in a dome-shaped cave swarms of small shrimp-like sea creatures live. They live in a developed ecosystem that until recently was hidden by glaciers.
