Science and serendipity.

Byline: The Register-Guard

It's not proof, but it might be evidence: A team of scientists at Oregon State University and elsewhere have found microscopic structures in a meteorite from Mars. These structures resemble tiny tunnels found in rocks on Earth that are believed to be created by bacteria. The similarity could be a sign that Mars once harbored life - pretty amazing.

But here's what's really amazing: An asteroid or meteorite slammed into Mars, probably hundreds of millions of years ago. The impact was so forceful that it propelled bits of the Martian surface into outer space. Some of these bits were captured by Earth's gravity after traveling between the two planets, which are never closer than 34 million miles apart. A few of those pieces of the fourth planet were big enough to reach the surface of the third without burning up in the atmosphere. About 30 Martian meteorites have been found by people who had the knowledge, skills and imagination to determine where they came from and how they were formed. Some of those meteorites fell to Earth within the past 100 years, too recently for them to have been affected by terrestrial bacterial processes. The OSU-based team had the equipment and the understanding to observe similarities between rocks from both planets, and to speculate that biological markers on the Earth rocks might be present in the Mars rocks as well.

At a star party organized by the Eugene Astronomical Society not long ago, an amateur astronomer brought with him a tiny flake from a Martian meteorite. It's a wonderful thing to hold a piece of another planet - the product of a journey involving explosive force, vast distances, long periods of time and a large measure of sheer luck. The real wonder, however, lies not only in the Mars rock's improbable journey, but in the fact that people are able to figure out what it is they hold in their hands.