Lake Vostok

Lake Vostok, hidden under 4 km of Antarctic ice, is Earth’s largest subglacial lake (250 km long, 900 meters deep). Isolated for 15 million years, its extreme environment—dark, high-pressure, and oxygen-rich—may harbor unique microbial life, offering clues to extraterrestrial habitats (e.g., Jupiter’s Europa). Drilled by Russian scientists in 2012 after decades of effort, its pristine waters could rewrite evolutionary science. A frozen time capsule, Vostok balances groundbreaking discovery with fears of contamination in this last unexplored frontier.