The mystery of the bloody waterfalls of Antarctica has been solved.

For a long time it was thought that algae were to blame. But it turned out - the matter is in the iron salts released from under the ice. The bright red stream of water was described by geologist Thomas Griffith Taylor in 1911. The waterfall began with ordinary clear water, but soon it turned red - due to the oxidation of iron, which was exposed to air for the first time in millennia. A new study has shown that the iron in the waterfall takes the unexpected form of nanospheres. They are a hundred times smaller than human red blood cells. A similar method of analysis can help find water and life on other planets. Perhaps now scientists are simply using the wrong equipment for searching.