Ice, something we believed to be inert, lifeless… has shown that there are microorganisms living beneath it. Well, it wasn’t the ice that proved it, but the University of Copenhagen, which found even nitrogen under the Arctic sea ice, and that is something essential for the process of life.
For years we believed that ice was synonymous with death, but now we might begin to study the planet’s climate (and our way of understanding it) differently. Here’s everything we know!
Life where it shouldn’t exist
For decades, scientists assumed that no organism could fix nitrogen in such a hostile environment, frozen, dark, and almost without nutrients. But Dr. Lisa W. von Friesen and her team decided to check.
At 13 points in the central Arctic, during expeditions on the icebreakers RV Polarstern and IB Oden, they collected samples of the ice and the water beneath it.
The surprise was incredible: the team found active genes of bacteria capable of transforming nitrogen from the air into compounds useful for life. In other words, there are microbes that keep doing their job even while trapped in the ice.
The clearest definition that life always finds a way to move forward!
Microbes that live without light
These are not cyanobacteria (which need sunlight to survive), but organisms called non-photosynthetic diazotrophs, meaning they don’t perform photosynthesis but feed on chemical reactions.
They survive in the ice and live right at the edges, where it starts to melt, because there’s more water and a little more light there, so that’s where they build their refuge.
The discovery
It’s believed that this discovery could rewrite climate models (because until now it was thought that life couldn’t exist in frozen zones, but if there are bacteria fixing nitrogen, that means nutrients are circulating… and with them, more life too. And more life also means more CO₂ absorption).
Are there risks?
Yes, because if that activity grows too fast, it could disrupt the Arctic’s natural balance, create oxygen-free zones, or displace other species… Nothing happens without consequences, right?
The melting ice…
Creates a paradox: global warming (which melts the poles) could actually increase the spread of these microbial communities, because as the ice retreats, water and light would create the ideal environment for these organisms to thrive.
However, this also means more instability, because it’s awakening a “hidden” ecology that could end up altering the entire biosphere.
The debate
As with any major discovery, there’s a long list of questions to ask: How intense is this process across the Arctic? Does it depend on temperature? On salinity? On the amount of light?
Scientists are already working on new missions to measure these variables and understand to what extent this “impossible life” influences the global climate.
The Arctic, laboratory of the future
Perhaps researchers want to use the Arctic’s extreme conditions to explore the possibility of life beyond our planet. If organisms can survive in these conditions, why not on Mars, Mercury, or Pluto? And on Saturn’s icy moons? The possibility exists, of course, we just need to know where to look!