A three-inch long Lyssianasid amphipod (seen in orange) was found on the underside of the McMurdo ice shelf in Antarctica.
Six hundred feet below the Antarctic ice, where no light can be found, NASA scientists made a startling discovery – a swimming shrimp-like creature that could challenge the idea of where and how forms of life can survive.
While the creature is small itself -– only about three inches long -– its impact could be tremendous.
A NASA team had lowered a small video camera to get the first-ever photograph of the underside of an ice shelf – and that’s when they saw the swimming creature, according to a NASA document.
The discovery could shake the very foundation of what kind of creatures can survive in certain atmospheres.
"We were operating on the presumption that nothing's there," NASA ice scientist Robert Bindschadler told the Associated Press. "It was a shrimp you'd enjoy having on your plate."
"We were just gaga over it," he told the AP.
The creature, a Lyssianasid amphipod, could lead the way for larger expeditions into harsher environments that scientists previously believed could not support life – both on the Earth and even frozen moons in outer space.
Can I get it at Red Lobster?
I always thought NASA was just about Space, now at least I know where my tax payer dollars are going to find a new shrimp cocktail , dont worry about AIDS cures or feeding the third world this is far more important.
OK, So whats the National Aeronautics and Space Administration doing under the ice
in Antarctica ?? Could it have anything to do with Washington's fraudulent global
warming agenda ?
OMG!! It took a while to accept my ancesters were apes....but shrimps!!!!
WOW! What's this? LET'S KILL IT!!
The article clearly states the creature was swiming. If is trapped or frozen it could not swim.
Brad... I say we go to Europa too! Let's spend some Obama money on Space .. and discover life on other worlds. Maybe we as a species won't be as self-absorbed.
NASA gets billions to spend every year and the best photo available is a fuzzy image that looks like a ketchup stain.
NASA is looking under ice shelves... Are they not suppose to be looking in space for the big invasion? They know something and not telling us.... Shrimp invasion? I hate it when shrimp invade. I guess space got boring.
testament to the close-mindedness of science & how scientific theory can be very wrong.
Was it alive? Maybe it got caught in the ice.
So was it Orange already or did they color it in the photo to make it more visible. I've been in a lot of caves and all the life forms down there are either white or somewhat transparent. If this thing is living there then what does it eat? Wouldn't that mean there is some other life form there that it's eating?
If I am ever trapped under miles of Antarctic ice, its good to know that I wont starve...
The Antartic is important because it offers environmental extremes that are worth studying.
Would be interesting to know what the purpose of wanting to know what the underside of an ice shelf looks like and how many millions was spent on this project. Ice is Ice no matter which way you look at it. Then again, this is just one opinion.