--- title: "Scientists Intrigued by Glacier Bleeding Red Fluid" description: "For over 100 years, scientists have been puzzling over a blood-red liquid seeping out of a glacier in Antarctica. Until now." date: "2023-07-01" modified: "2023-07-01" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-glacier-bleeding-red-fluid" categories: - "Science & Energy" tags: - "Antarctica" - "glaciers" - "mars" - "the digest" --- # Scientists Intrigued by Glacier Bleeding Red Fluid ![For over 100 years, scientists have been puzzling over a blood-red liquid seeping out of a glacier in Antarctica. Until now.]() *\Image: National Science Foundation/Peter Rejcek\* ## Blood Falls For over a century, scientists have been puzzling over a mysterious, blood-red liquid that's been seeping out of a glacier in Antarctica. The weird site, later dubbed "Blood Falls," has confounded researchers. But now, a team of researchers at Johns Hopkins may have shed new light on the strange discharge. They took samples of the red liquid and examined them under a highly specialized transmission electron microscope — and found something surprising, which could even have implications for our search for alien life on other planets. "As soon as I looked at the microscope images, I noticed that there were these little nanospheres and they were iron-rich, and they have lots of different elements in them besides iron — silicon, calcium, aluminum, sodium — and they all varied," said Ken Livi, a research scientist and coauthor of a [new paper]() about the glacier published in the journal *Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences*, in a [statement](). ## Nanosphere Nuggets The existence of these mysterious nanospheres, which haven't been detected until now, runs counter to the prevailing theory that the blood-red liquid was caused by an abundance of minerals. Minerals are crystalline in nature, while these nanospheres, which are 100 times smaller than red blood cells, aren't. Their existence also sheds new light on the microorganisms and bacteria that have lived for "potentially millions of years underneath the saline waters of the Antarctic glacier," according to Livi. ## Mars in Antarctica Interestingly, Livi is a planetary scientist who has studied ways of analyzing biomaterials on Earth and beyond. "With the advent of the Mars Rover missions, there was an interest in trying to analyze the solids that came out of the waters of Blood Falls as if it was a Martian landing site," Livi said in the statement. "What would happen if a Mars Rover landed in Antarctica? Would it be able to determine what was causing the Blood Falls to be red?" Unfortunately, the rover vehicles currently examining the Martian surface are designed to detect minerals in their crystalline form, which makes "our methods for identifying these materials... inadequate," according to the researcher. This means scientists are left with a significant challenge: there isn't a practical way to get a transmission electron microscope to Mars. But if they *could* find these nanospheres on another planet, they could indicate signs of ancient life, Livi and his team suggest in their paper. **More on glaciers:** *[Climate Change Could Cause Himalayan Glaciers to Shrink By a Shocking Amount]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()