Russian scientists have finally reached Lake Vostok.

That might not sound very interesting until you realize that Lake Vostok is a freshwater lake that has been sealed away for millions of years under two miles of thick Antarctic ice.

Clean samples of the water from Lake Vostok, named after the scientific research station located on the ice sheet above it, will not be taken until the next Antarctic summer, in December 2012.  But it might give us a glimpse of what life was like 10-20 million years ago on Earth.  In fact, there may even be life down there (in the form of microbes).