NASA scientists have discovered a shrimp-like creature living deep beneath an Antarctic ice sheet, prompting speculation that similar creatures could exist in similarly harsh extra-terrestrial environments.

Robert Bindschadler, who led the research, said his team had been operating on the presumption that they would find nothing and said they were “gaga” about the discovery. The team lowered a video camera on a cable under the ice and the inquisitive creature first swam by before settling on the cable.

The creature, known as a Lyssianasid amphipod, is three inches long and orange in colour and was found more than 600 feet underneath the ice in subfreezing dark waterand more than 12 miles from open sea.

“It was a shrimp you’d enjoy having on your plate,” said Bindschadler, who will present the group’s findings at a meeting of the American Geological Union on Wednesday.

The group also found a tentacle which they believe came from a foot-long jellyfish.

“They are looking at the equivalent of a drop of water in a swimming pool that you would expect nothing to be living in and they found not one animal but two,” said Stacy Kim, another biologist working with the research team. “We have no idea what’s going on down there.”

The discovery raises the question of whether life forms could be able to survive in comparable environments beyond the Earth, such as on Europa, a frozen moon orbiting Jupiter which some space scientists believe could, hypothetically, be inhabited by living organisms.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 at 4:55 pm and is filed under Crustaceans, Discoveries, Ocean. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.