The earth is the homeland where mankind has lived for millions of years. As mankind enters the age of technology, there is more and more knowledge about this homeland. Although many secrets have been discovered by humans on the current earth with the help of science and technology, there are still many areas that are blind spots for human exploration.
Let’s not talk about the mysterious oceans and the interior of the earth. Take the land where humans live as an example. There is still a place we don’t know much about. This place is the southern level of the earth’s extreme competition. Many people believe that Antarctica is known as the seventh continent. It is the last continent to be discovered on the earth.
The total area of the Antarctic continent is 13.9 million square kilometers, equivalent to the total area of China and the India-Pakistan subcontinent, ranking fifth among all continents in the world. The entire Antarctic continent is covered by a huge ice sheet, with an average elevation of 2,350 meters, which is the highest continent in the world.
For a planet, its polar regions are often the coldest places, and so are the north and south poles of the earth. Compared with the Arctic, the Antarctic has too many secrets that humans currently cannot fully detect. Although Antarctica is a very cold area and was once a forbidden zone for humans, it does not mean that it is a forbidden zone for life.
There are still life in Antarctica, such as the penguins we all know. In the past, scientists’ knowledge of Antarctic life was limited to the surface, and they never considered the existence of abundant life under the Antarctic ice. However, as the global temperature continued to rise and the Antarctic temperature continued to rise, the ice and snow began to melt. At this time, some scenarios under the Antarctic ice made us understand.
Scientists discovered a new world of life 800 meters below the Antarctic ice, subverting human cognition of life. Since Antarctica is an extremely cold region of the earth, there is very little life here, and it is basically concentrated on the surface. Under the Antarctic ice, many people think that there will be no life, but after the melting of the ice and snow, what is revealed to us is a new world of life.
Scientific love discovered thousands of microorganisms 800 meters below the Antarctic ice. This is a remarkable discovery. We must know that there is no sunlight under the Antarctic ice, and it is very cold. How does life survive in the environment here? The discovery of abundant life under the Antarctic ice also gave us a new understanding of the tenacity of life. At this time, some scientists thought of extraterrestrial life.
You must know that water is actually very common in the universe. Take the solar system as an example. Many moons of Jupiter and Saturn have water, and the surfaces of many asteroids at the edge of the solar system are also covered by ice. Many celestial bodies far away from the sun have water resources, which exist in the form of ice on the surface.
If there can be a large number of microbes under the ice of the Antarctic, then there is a high probability that there will be life under the ice of the cold alien planet. This has important guiding significance for mankind to explore extraterrestrial life. We must know that human beings have been searching for extraterrestrial life since they walked out of the earth for more than half a century.
In the past, when searching for extraterrestrial life, scientists often used the earth’s warm ecological environment as a reference standard. They believed that life was unlikely to exist in some extremely cold environments. However, the discovery of the new world of life in the South Pole of the earth has changed our perception. Perhaps life is a universal thing in the universe.
As long as there is a planet with water, whether it is liquid water or frozen water, life may exist. However, intelligent life like humans is believed to be very rare in the universe, because the birth of life may not require too much ecological environment, even in extreme planetary environments, simple microorganisms may be born.
But if you want to gradually melt from simple life to complex life, or even advanced intelligent life like human beings, then the requirements for the ecological environment are very high. Perhaps only a perfect ecological planet like the earth has the possibility of the birth of intelligent life.
The discovery of a new world of life under the Antarctic ice is just the tip of the iceberg that has unveiled the mystery of Antarctica. Such a major discovery is also due to the increase in global temperature. If the temperature of Antarctica does not rise, it is still as cold as in the past, then it will be difficult for us to truly explore Antarctica. And without the continuous melting of glaciers, we would not have discovered the world of life under the Antarctic ice.
Although it is a happy thing to find the new life world 800 meters below the Antarctic ice, it is not happy for many people. We are able to explore the world of life 800 meters below the Antarctic ice, which shows how fast the ice and snow in Antarctica are melting now. And this trend is intensifying as the global temperature continues to rise.
I believe everyone knows that if the glaciers in Antarctica melt, it will have a very big impact on the ecological environment of the earth. The first is the substantial rise in sea level, a large number of coastal cities will be submerged, and humans will lose a lot of land for survival.
Secondly, the continuous rise of the north-south temperature will continue to revive the permafrost, and the ancient bacteria and viruses enclosed in the ice may also be awakened step by step. What impact these ancient bacteria and viruses will have when they join the Earth’s current ecosystem is currently unknown. If they are very harmful to life on earth and human beings, then we may be able to control and eliminate them. I believe many friends can also think of the final result.
Many scientists have already predicted the scenarios that will occur in the future due to rising global temperatures. In fact, we can also imagine that in the future, the earth may basically disappear, and there will be oceans everywhere. This scenario is very similar to the early days of the earth.
According to current archaeological studies by scientists, at the early stage of life on the earth, the land area was far less than it is now. At that time, the ocean area of the earth was even wider. This can be seen from the discovery of marine fossils at the foot of Mount Everest. It was only afterwards that the ecological environment continued to change, and the land area increased, and only 29% of the land area is now available.
If the earth is covered by the ocean again in the future, how will humanity survive? In fact, we don’t have to worry about this at all. With the rapid development of human technology, we will build a large number of maritime cities in the future. Even without land, we can still live and live in maritime cities. And once we become an interstellar civilization, we can also live on other planets, and there is no need to worry that the earth will not survive one day, what should humans do.