영국 과학자들은 몇 천 년간 봉인되어 있던 호수를 뚫기 위해 남극빙상 1.8 마일을 드릴 하려고 했던 시도가 실패했음을 밝혔다고 UPI통신이 27일 (현지시간) 보도했다.
영국 남극 자연환경 연구소의 이 프로젝트는 호수를 도달하기 위해 끓는 물에 가까운 물을 이용하려고 시도했다.
과학자들은 메인 시초공과 그에 평행한 공을 연결하는 것을 실패함에 따라 이 프로젝트를 중단하기로 했다고 BBC는 목요일 밝혔다.
“남극에서 모든 기구들과 장비들을 빼내어 영국으로 가져오는 데에만 한 두철 정도 걸릴 것이라고 예상되므로 약 삼 년에서 오년까지도 내다보고 있다,”고 브리스톨 대학의 선임연구자 시거트가 말했다.
이 프로젝트의 과학적인 목표는 극단적인 압력 컨디션과 온도의 엘스워스 호수 밑에 사는 생명체를 알아보기 위함이었다. 하지만 이 프로젝트의 문제점은 지난주부터 오작동하는 메인 보일러의 대체품이 영국으로부터 운송될 수 없자 드러나기 시작했다. (코리아헤럴드)
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Artists impression of Antarctic lake drilling project. (British Antarctic Survey-UPI) |
Antarctic science drill project called off
British scientists say they‘ve abandoned an attempt to drill through 1.8 miles of Antarctic ice to a lake sealed off for thousands of years.
The British Antarctic Survey project had intended drill through the ice using near-boiling water to reach the lake, believed to have been sealed off from contact with the surface for as much as half a million years.
Scientists say they had to call off the attempt after failing to connect the main borehole with a parallel hole intended to recover the hot drilling water, the BBC reported Thursday.
“We kept trying for over 24 hours to reach that connection but we couldn’t do it,” said principal project investigator Martin Siegert from the University of Bristol.
“All that time we were losing fuel and water from the ice sheet surface and we got to a critical condition where our calculations showed us we simply didn‘t have enough fuel to continue any further down into the ice sheet to hit the top of the lake.”
The research team said it was “weatherizing” the equipment while considering when they might resume the $13 million project.
“It will take a season or two to get all of our equipment out of Antarctica and back to the United Kingdom, so at a minimum we’re looking at three to four, maybe five years I would have thought,” Siegert said.
The scientific goal of the project was to seek evidence of simple life forms existing in the extreme conditions of pressure and temperature in the sub-glacial Lake Ellsworth.
The project first experienced problems last week when the main boiler used to heat drilling water suffered a failure and a replacement part hard to be flown to the site from Britain. (UPI)
