Hubble Detects Organic Molecule on an Extrasolar Planet

Hubble Detects Organic Molecule on an Extrasolar Planet

sev.prnewswire.com

NASA will hold a media teleconference at 2 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, March 19, to report on the first-ever detection of the organic molecule methane in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting a distant star.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Wow, this is totally amazing.
The abundance of methane in the Earth's atmosphere in 1998 was 1745 parts per billion

Methane can come from organic life and natural gas sources.

Great discovery.

sev.prnewswire.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

so does this mean that there might be life on that planet?

if so, excellent find on behalf of NASA

If anyone can explain to me why it is big news, I'll thank him. There are planets in Solar system with organic molecules. This does not mean they support life. That also does not mean that they do not support some life form. Organic for us can mean Inorganic to other species, if they exist out there,and vice-versa. Why all this meaningless (at least to me) declarations : "similar star system to ours", "organic molecules found in different star system"...
With multitude of stars/galaxies it is certain there are all possible chemical compounds in the universe. There might be almost copies of Solar system. Statistically there "has to/might" be life.
Why organic molecule,and methane out of all (one of simplest) deserves such a fuss? It had to be there somewhere, after all.

I would appreciate the enlightenment as well. Both Neptune and Uranus have large amounts of methane in their atmospheres. I don't see what is special about finding it on other planets, beyond our ability to detect it.