&lt;div class=&quot;track&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;&quot; src=&quot;http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.22.2/24161?ns=guardian&amp;pageName=Antarctic+mission+to+look+for+life+in+sub-glacial+lake%3AArticle%3A1648168&amp;ch=World+news&amp;c3=Obs&amp;c4=Antarctica+%28News%29%2CScience%2CEvolution+%28Science%29%2CBiology%2CWorld+news&amp;c5=Environment+Conservation%2CNot+commercially+useful&amp;c6=Alok+Jha&amp;c7=11-Oct-15&amp;c8=1648168&amp;c9=Article&amp;c10=News&amp;c11=World+news&amp;c13=&amp;c25=&amp;c30=content&amp;h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FAntarctica&quot; width=&quot;1&quot; height=&quot;1&quot; /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;standfirst&quot;&gt;Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey will drill 3km through ice sheet to take samples from Lake Ellsworth&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It is a mission into the uncharted and unknown in search of the hardiest life forms on Earth. British engineers set off last week to explore a lake that has been isolated from the rest of the planet for hundreds of thousands of years three kilometres under the Antarctic ice.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Researchers from the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bas.ac.uk/index.php&quot; title=&quot;&quot;&gt;British Antarctic Survey&lt;/a&gt; (BAS) will use a hot-water &quot;drill&quot; to cut through the ice cap to Lake Ellsworth, on the western Antarctic ice sheet. By sampling the contents of the lake, which is liquid because of the extreme pressure of the ice on top of it, they hope to find clues about the evolution of life.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The predominant mood among the scientists is one of intense curiosity. &quot;We really don&#039;t know what to expect,&quot; said Martin Siegert of the University of Edinburgh, one of the principal investigators on the expedition. &quot;Whether we will find lots of life, whether we&#039;ll find low levels of life on the edge of existence, or whether we&#039;ll find nothing.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In recent decades, scientists have found bacteria and other single-celled organisms that have evolved to live in conditions in which other life forms would struggle to survive, such as darkness or extreme temperatures or salinity. The scientists believe that Lake Ellsworth might be a haven for these so-called &quot;extremophiles&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;There is [also] a chance that viruses might well be there, bacteria might well be there and other more complex forms, but we don&#039;t believe other macro-organisms are down there,&quot; said Siegert.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;David Pearce, science co-ordinator at the BAS and part of the team that will make the measurements next year once the equipment is in place, said finding life in a lake that had been isolated from the rest of the biosphere for so long would reveal much about life on Earth, but &quot;if we find nothing, this will be even more significant, because it will define limits at which life can no longer exist on the planet&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Whatever is found, it will shed light on the potential of life existing elsewhere in our solar system. Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter, has an icy crust with a liquid ocean underneath, and some astrobiologists think that life might be able to survive there. &quot;If life is teeming in Lake Ellsworth, then we know it&#039;s a very good habitat and it might change our appreciation of other places, Europa included,&quot; said Siegert.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Lake Ellsworth will be the first of Antarctica&#039;s 387 known sub-glacial lakes to be sampled directly. &quot;We don&#039;t know whether the lake is 100,000 years old, 400,000 years old or a million years old or older,&quot; said Siegert. &quot;These are questions we need answers to.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;All the equipment that will be sent into the lake will be pre-sterilised and bagged in clean rooms and laboratories in the UK. They will only be unsealed for use when they are in the boreholes &ndash; the samples of lake water, for example, will be brought up to the surface in pressurised titanium cylinders to preserve their contents.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The team will have 24 hours to take all they need before the bitter cold causes the water in the borehole to freeze solid and seal the lake once more.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The engineers who will install the equipment left for the Antarctic on Friday, taking with them around 70 tonnes of equipment. In a year, the science team will follow and spend four days drilling and taking their samples.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The detailed analyses will take place in the UK in the following months and it&#039;ll probably be, at the earliest, around Easter time [in 2013] before we would be prepared to tell everybody what&#039;s in there,&quot; said Siegert.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;related&quot; style=&quot;float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;&quot;&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/antarctica&quot;&gt;Antarctica&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/evolution&quot;&gt;Evolution&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/biology&quot;&gt;Biology&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;author&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/alokjha&quot;&gt;Alok Jha&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;terms&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk&quot;&gt;guardian.co.uk&lt;/a&gt; &amp;copy; 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. 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