A peculiar anomaly was spotted from space amid the frozen expanses of Antarctica, the Daily Express reports citing the Science Channel series What on Earth.
According to the newspaper, the anomaly in question is a giant hole located near the Ross Ice Shelf, which the series narrator described as "something no one was expecting to see".
As researchers struggled to explain this phenomenon, they first considered "that warm ocean currents could have caused it by melting the ice from below".
"But there’s a problem with this theory – the giant hole is miles from the ocean", the series explained. "Scientists now believe there is something ancient lurking beneath the ice that created the hole."
The theory scientists eventually came up with postulates that the hole was created thanks to a lake located deep below the Antarctic ice sheet – a leftover from millions of years ago when the continent had a different climate that allowed running water to exist on the surface.
"We call them ghost lakes because they are invisible to us until something happens and they reveal themselves", said Professor Frank Muller-Karger of the University of South Florida.