Russia’s Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute has confirmed that its drilling team has indeed penetrated to the subglacial Lake Vostok.

Researchers have spent two decades drilling through over 3,700 metres of Antartic ice to reach the lake, which is believed to have been sealed off from the world for 15 million years.

Although the drillers were expected to reach the lake this year, the team’s leader was still unable to confirm the success as recently as yesterday (‘‘Too soon’ to confirm success of Antarctic lake drilling’).

Today the institute said that Lake Vostok was indeed penetrated on 5 February.

“This achievement by Russian polar researchers and engineers is a wonderful gift for the Day of Russian science, which our country celebrates on 8 February,” says a statement from the institute.

For more on what the researchers hope to learn, and how they will try to avoid contaminating the pristine lake, see our story from last year: ‘Race against time for raiders of the lost lake‘.