Long preservation , including bacteria revived and cultured after some 25 million years of encapsulation in the guts of a resin-trapped bee. I should venture to assert, that if these worlds are habitable, they either are, have been, or will be inhabited. Jules Verne, From the Earth to the Moon , 1877. The streptococcus bacteria on Surveyor 3 might not be the only interplanetary microbial hitchhikers. In 1996, researchers at NASA's Johnson Space Center announced that they had found evidence of microfossils in a Mars meteorite recovered from a field of blue ice in the Antarctic.
Critics claim that the PAHs are contamination from the ice.
The recent discovery of a 13th meteorite, apparently from Mars, might help is resolving the issue. Hoover is part of two investigations that will develop tools and techniques to prepare and examine specimens that may have life forms. He also is planning a trip to Antarctica to look for samples of life thriving under extreme conditions. While long associated with rocket propulsion, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center also is deeply involved in space science research. Recently, this has expanded to include astrobiology, the study of life outside the Earth.