Diving Under The Ice At Lake Untersee To Do Astrobiology

Keith’s note: I just got a long update from Astrobiologist Dale Andersen at Lake Untersee, Antarctica about his ongoing Astrobiology field research. Someday soon we’ll get reports like this from the south pole of the Moon – and then Mars – and beyond: : “Keith, Sorry for the quiet—our days have been packed, and out here every usable hour feels borrowed. Since my last report the weather has changed its mind a few times. The snowstorm I mentioned in my last note covered the lake with a few inches of snow for about a week, with steady drifting around our camp. It slowed us down, but did not stop us and we still managed plenty of work in the margins between squalls. A few days have been outright gusty—50 mph or more—never ideal when you are trying to handle gear with cold hands, and definitely noisy when you are trying to sleep. The bright side is that we have not been hit by anything truly serious (100+ mph winds like we’ve experienced in previous seasons), so by Untersee standards we have been lucky. Most of the snow on the lake has now blown clear and we hare back to hard ice.” Full report with pictures and videos.