Is it the source of life here? Popular Mechanics details five experiments aimed at showing that terrestrial life could have come from space:

Drill on Mars

Send Samples to Space

Expose Life to Re-entry

Shoot Bacteria From a Gun

Study Extreme Life on Earth

We reported on one of the re-entry experiments a while back. In that instance, the bacteria riding a re-entering "meteor" got fried pretty badly. Maybe this time out they will embed the samples deeper in the rock.

There are profound implications if life can be shown to survive a journey through space, and even more profound if life can be shown definitively to have come from elsewhere. Of course, we then face the mystery of how did life come to exist there? That's assuming we can ever even figure out where "there" is.

Via Instapundit.