Scientists recently discovered a 30,000-year-old ancient, giant virus in melting Arctic ice, The Washington Post reported.
Mollivirus sibericum is a whopping .6 microns across, and has more than 500 genes, the news outlet reported, citing a paper recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
To put those numbers in perspective, HIV has just nine genes.
As long as it poses no threat to humans or animals, scientists plan to wake up the virus so they can study it.
This isn't the first virus like this that scientists have found. They have previously found Pandoravirus, which has a staggering 2,500 genes, according to the article.
The question scientists pose, however, is, what does this mean for the evolution of viruses. By waking the virus up and studying it, they hope to find some answers.
