What Earth would look like to alien astronomers and building bacteria capable of surviving on other planets

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. You may notice that this and future entries are shorter than usual; career, family and book deal commitments have forced me to cut back some of my projects. Now, here's today's news:
g Stars - What is the habitable zone for the nearby star LP 010-066?
g Abodes -What would Earth look like to alien astronomers? If they had access to telescopes far more powerful than our own, it might look a lot like what the Deep Impact spacecraft recently saw from its vantage point 50 million kilometers away. See article.
g Life - A new infrared image has revealed the distribution of important organic molecules in a distant galaxy. The finding is providing information about molecules in space that could have played a role in the origin of life. See article.
g Intelligence -An ancient Greek mechanical device regarded by some experts as the world's first computer may have foresaw solar eclipses, studies indicate. See article.
g Message -The chances are there's life out there, but any messages could be thousands of years old and indecipherable. See article. Note: This article is from May 2005.
g Cosmicus -Synthetic biology and microbial insights will soon allow scientists to custom-build bacteria capable of surviving on other planets, says extremophile expert John Baross. See article.
g Aftermath - If we encountered an intelligent species on another planet, could we understand them? In turn, could extrasolar species decipher one of our 8,000 terrestrial languages in use today? See article. Note: This article is from June 2004.