Andrey Kapitsa, discoverer of Lake Vostok

Andrey Kapitsa. View of the Russian geographer and discoverer of Lake Vostok, Andrey Kapitsa (born 1931). Kapitsa was born in Cambridge, England while his father Pyotr was working at the University there. After reading geography, he travelled to Antarctica in 1956. There, he postulated that huge lakes could exist far below the ice, kept liquid by the Earth's heat. In 1966 he found anomalies in his seismic readings at the Russian Vostok base, but it was only 30 years later that he realised the readings betrayed the presence of water. Named Lake Vostok, it is hoped it will reveal the history of Antarctica, and may even harbour strange life around its warm floor.

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