http://www.rdmag.com/ShowPR.aspx?PUBCODE=014&ACCT=1400000101&ISSUE=0812&RELTYPE=CS&PRODCODE=00000000&PRODLETT=EO&CommonCount=0

The Jupiter-sized planet, called HD 189733b, is too hot for life. But new Hubble observations are a proof-of-concept demonstration that the basic chemistry for life can be measured on planets orbiting other stars. Organic compounds can also be a by-product of life processes and their detection on an Earth-like planet may someday provide the first evidence of life beyond Earth.

Previous observations of HD 189733b by Hubble and the Spitzer Space Telescope found water vapor. Earlier this year Hubble found methane in the planet’s atmosphere.

“This is exciting because Hubble is allowing us to see molecules that probe the conditions, chemistry, and composition of atmospheres on other planets,” says first author Mark Swain of The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “Thanks to Hubble we’re entering an era where we are rapidly going to expand the number of molecules we know about on other planets.”

If you think these pictures are incredible, I think you would very much enjoy the DVD series called, “The Universe”. I understand almost all the images in this series were taken from Hubble, and it would seem that most of the images on the other end of that link you dropped were on the series as well.

Here’s a link to official site. There’re a Quicktime videos there as well. (Sheesh, I sound like a infomerical.)

Anyway, these images are just spectacular.

Of course, that’s why we built the Hubble telescope: To see them clearer.

And yet we now know that the Universe is not infinite. It had a beginning. Yet the time and distance simply collapses our perspective of time. So, what IS time exactly if our experience of it cannot comprehend its distance from us?

An 18th century French astronomer, Charles Messier, was an avid comet hunter. Faint comets look like small fuzzy patches in a telescope. They move and change appearance from night to night. Every now and then Messier would stumble across an object that he initially thought was a comet, but upon further observation he noticed that they kept the same appearance and stayed in the same spot.

So he compiled a list of objects for would-be comet hunters to avoid. He basically said, “I have no idea what these things are, but they aren’t comets, so don’t be fooled by them.”

To make a long story short, today we know that his list runs the gamut from galaxies to supernova remnants to star clusters to stellar nurseries. Messier’s list comprises the nearest and brightest examples of phenomena that can be found all over the universe, and pretty much all of them can be seen with small telescopes if you know where to look.