Several stages of building the Pioneer rockets were not done in a clean room. The result is that it is likely that bacteria is present on the outer shell of the Pioneer probes. As these probes head towards the outer rim of the solar system and beyond, they will carry the earthly DNA in that bacteria through the galaxy. The article makes it clear that these probes will not be near another star system for some time (more than 40,000 years), and that it is not likely that they will get anywhere near another planet for a long time. Still, score one for migration.

Scientists are hoping to explain what they call the Pioneer Anomaly by digitizing and analyzing the 10 gigs of data stored on magnetic tape drives. The MSNBC space article on the subject is very vague about what the Pioneer Anomaly actually is. Apparently something at the edge of our solar system is 'pushing back' the Pioneer 10 and 11 probes. The probes were launched in 1972 and 1973 respectively. Apparently the probes are closer to the sun than people involved in the project think the probes should be. About 240,000 miles closer to the sun.