Found life in one of the most extreme places on the planet
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Although life seems pretty rare and fragile system in the Universe, its stability is striking: tiny microorganisms are able to survive in the most extreme places of our planet — many kilometers from the ocean depths, where there is no light, no heat, to the hot vents of the volcanoes. Trying to unravel this fascinating ability of organisms, the extremophiles to survive, scientists from the Oceanographic Institute woods hole (WHOI) decided to explore the lower part of the oceanic crust, which is one of the last frontiers of research . The organisms that were found under rocks in the Indian ocean, can prove that life can be more amazing than we could have previously considered.
inhabited by extremophiles?
Extremophiles — a truly unique creature that can survive even in the harshest conditions on the planet. After analyzing the samples of rocks drilled in one of the underwater ridges in the Indian ocean, microbiologists from Tongji University in China were able to reach a geological layer, usually locked under the upper basalts of the earth's crust, according to the portal .
Hidden inside the rough, chilled magma, at a depth of 750 meters under the ocean floor, researchers have discovered a rare, but a variety of germs that in some unknown way, were able to survive in conditions of eternal darkness and tremendous pressure. Some of these organisms were bacteria species Chroococcidiopsis — known for its ability to live in extreme conditions; their neighbors were the bacteria Pseudomonas capable of metabolizing the energy in several ways. Such unusual abilities have evolved in bacteria because of the fact that the conditions under the ocean floor is clearly not a singular comfort, and to survive in a hostile environment, organisms had to evolve.
It is Known that some of the extremophiles discovered are autotrophs — organisms that manufacture their own food by using mechanisms similar to plants. So, although the germs are not as self-sufficient as compared to their counterparts from the Atacama desert in Chile, analysis of enzymatic activity and lipid biomarkers showed that some microbes rely on the degradation of organic substances to maintain their livelihoods.
Bacterial life can live even in the absence of oxygen and the enormous pressure.
Feeding on the remains of organic molecules, which can be fragments of amino acids and traces of grease seeping with water through cracks in the oceanic crust, some of the microbes also have the ability to accumulate carbon in their tissues, while others can retrieve it from the hard molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
Although the question of the existence of life in other parts of the discovered geological layer still remains, the scientists are optimistic: detection of life in the lower regions of the earth's crust could expand our knowledge of the adaptation capabilities of extremophiles that may have played a major role in the search of similar organisms on the icy satellites of the giant planets of the Solar system. It is known that the conditions under-ice oceans on Europa and may be largely similar to the conditions of the oceans with the only difference that the oceans of the blue planet not covered by thick ice shell. If so, extremophiles, able to live even in the most unlikely places of our living world, can become a clue of the possible habitability of other worlds of the Solar system.
Under the surface of the planet found life
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