For the first time, scientists have found a huge groundwater system below ice in Antarctica. 

The reservoir of groundwater - water held underground in the soil or in pores and crevices in rock - lies beneath the Whillans Ice Stream in West Antarctica, they say. 

Such groundwater systems are likely common in Antarctica and affect how the continent reacts to climate change - although researchers don't know exactly how. 

The discovery confirms what researchers had already suspected but had been unable to verify until now, thanks to electromagnetic techniques.