R.I.P. Scout26
How big a hog could you barbecue in that pit?
In this regard, was the mission a success? The data collected by Kourounis at the very bottom of the crater certainly suggests so. “It was pretty amazing to find several different kinds of bacteria living in that hot, methane gas crater,” he says. “The organisms there were not found in the surrounding soil, so there’s a real, exotic ecosystem going on down there. The findings have been checked against the existing DNA database, and the closest match to what we found was bacteria that live in places like volcanic hot springs and underground coal fires. Real extremophiles.”
