Antarctica is Earth’s southernmost continent where the geographic South Pole is located. The frozen desert is home to some 1,000 scientists who live in the blistering conditions that reach -90C at times, as they attempt to understand more about the history of Earth. NASA too has a keen interest, both for space exploration and scientific research and, in 2010, a team from the space agency was left “surprised” after drilling into the ice.

They pushed a camera into a hole more than 600 feet below the West Antarctica Ice Sheet and spotted a small shrimp-like creature dancing around.

Bob Bindschadler of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre remembered the moment well, revealing:  “We were like little kids huddling around, just oohing and aahing at this little creature swimming around and giving us a little show.

“It was the thrill of discovery that made us giddy, just totally unexpected.

“We thought we were just going into a deep, dark cold water hole and never anticipated we’d see any life.

“The colour was what caught our eyes.”

The complex critter was identified as a Lyssianasid amphipod, about three inches in length.

Alberto Behar, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was the brains behind the state-of-the-art camera used to capture the moment/

He remembered the day well, stating: “This was the first time we’d had a camera able to look back up at the ice.

“This probe is an upgrade to the original, it has three cameras – down, side and back-looking.

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“The back-looking camera saw the shrimp-like animal.

“The real benefit of these exploration programmes is that you go in not knowing what you’re going to find and you get surprised.

“It makes it worth all the trouble putting everything together when you find something new that you didn’t expect.”

Dr Behar designed the original NASA borehole camera apparatus in 1999.

It has since seen six deployments with British, Australian and American science teams in Antarctica, Greenland and Alaska.

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