One of the hallmarks of religions throughout history has been the idea that we occupy a special place in the Universe. Human beings on Earth, say the priests, the imams, and the shamans are unique. We’re the apple of god’s eye, as Mark Twain so aptly put it in “Letters from the Earth.”

Not so fast, padre. Of couple of recent announcements have shed more light on the almost certain notion that life exists elsewhere in this big, old Cosmos. And where there’s life, there must be the potential for intelligence (except, of course, within the Bush White House.)

Last week, scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope announced they’ve detected organic molecules on a huge planet some 63 light-years away. The planet, poetically dubbed HD 189733b, orbits a star in the constellation Vulpecula.

The discovery proves that researchers have the capability to find the basic building blocks of life outside our Solar System. They’ll now use HST to examine smaller, more optimally positioned planets that have greater potential for supporting life.

HD 189733b has traces of water, a discovery announced in 2007, and methane. Scientists seek four substances – water, methane, carbon dioxide, and oxygen – when looking for signs of life on a planet.

Mark Swain, head of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory team responsible for the discovery, calls it “a dress rehearsal for future searches for life on more hospitable planets.” HD 189733b is too close to its host star – and therefore too hot – to support life as we know it.

Closer to home, the Cassini spacecraft, which has been studying Saturn’s neighborhood, has “tasted” an organic soup emanating from the gas giant’s moon, Enceladus. (By the way, don’t you love the term “gas giant”? It signifies the massive outer planets of our Solar System: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. It can also refer to me after I’ve gorged on a pizza with everything.)

Anyway, Enceladus’s “soup” contains water vapor and key organic chemicals. According to Dennis Matson, Cassini project scientist at the JPL in Pasadena, “Enceladus has got warmth, water, and organic chemicals, some of the essential building blocks needed for life.”

Give us a few more decades and I’m certain scientists will find living, breathing creatures roaming some distant planet. Just as the spectacular photograph of the earthrise taken by the Apollo 8 astronauts changed the way we view our world (well, some of us,) the realization that beasts and intellectuals may populate other planets ought to put us even more in our places.

Who, then, will be the apple of god’s eye?

Next time,

Big Mike