Microbes Two Miles Below Earth Surface in South Africa

© 1999 by Linda Moulton Howe

June 27, 1999  Princeton, New Jersey ­ A persistent question in the 20th Century has been: Is there life of any kind on Mars? Back on August 8, 1996, the media was full of headlines about signs of life on Mars in a chunk of meteorite discovered in Antarctica. When the meteorite was examined microscopically, scientists found rice-shaped "globules" in tiny cracks on the rock which resembled bacteria. The carbon in those fossilized globules dated back to about three and a half billion years ago when Mars probably had water on its surface and was warmer.