MOSCOW, July 29 Russian scientists are planning to develop technologies that will allow them to penetrate Lake Vostok, hidden under the Antarctic ice sheet, for the first time without disturbing its unique ecosystem, said Alexander Makarov.
In January of this year, a new wintering complex of the Russian polar station Vostok in central Antarctica was opened; it should become a site for major scientific projects, including the study of the subglacial Lake Vostok. 
«We have to develop a technology that will allow us to penetrate a body of water that has been hidden for millions of years under the Antarctic ice sheet without disturbing its unique ecosystem,» Makarov said.
According to him, studying the lake and its bottom sediments is a task for Russian scientists for the next two decades.
Lake Vostok is the largest subglacial body of water on the planet. The lake was discovered at the end of the 20th century in Antarctica in the area of the Russian Antarctic station Vostok, after which it received its name. Its area is about 16 thousand square kilometers — slightly less than the area of Lake Ladoga, and the depth reaches 1.2 thousand meters. For several million years, the ecosystem of Lake Vostok has been isolated from external influences under a layer of ice at a depth of about 4 kilometers. The first opening of the lake took place on February 5, 2012. To date, this is the least studied place on the planet. 
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