Abstract
From the point of view of the possibility of the existence of life on Europa, we should consider a lake called Vostok, which is the largest of about 80 subglacial lakes in Antarctica. Its surface is of approximately 14,000 km2and its volume is 1,800 km3. Indeed, this Ontario-sized lake in Eastern Antarctica is also deep, with a maximum depth of 670 m. On the other hand, from the point of view of microbiology, the habitat analogue provided by Lake Vostok for the Europa environment seems appropriate (Chela-Flores, 2001). At the time of writing, the ice above the lake has been cored to a depth of over 3,600 m, stopping just over 100 m over the surface of the lake itself. This work has revealed great diversity of single-celled organisms: yeast, actinomycetes, mycelian fungi (which remain viable for almost 40,000 years), diatoms, and most interestingly, 200,000 year old bacteria. Besides, it appears that water temperatures do not drop too far below zero centigrade, with the possibility of geothermal heating raising the temperatures above this level.
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Dudeja, S., Bhattacherjee, A.B., Chela-Flores, J. (2012). Antarctica as Model for the Possible Emergence of Life on Europa. In: Hanslmeier, A., Kempe, S., Seckbach, J. (eds) Life on Earth and other Planetary Bodies. Cellular Origin, Life in Extreme Habitats and Astrobiology, vol 24. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4966-5_23
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