Please note that this article was originally published on March 20, 2008. The possible detection of methane in the atmosphere of a distant planet could be the next big step in the search for life outside our solar system Everyone seems to be double-extra-cautiously optimistic about this finding, so don’t go running out to your telescope tonight looking for greetings from friendly space creatures. But in work reported today in Nature, astronomers say they used the Hubble Space Telescope’s infrared imager to pick up signs of methane in the atmosphere of a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting a star some 63 million...