Thanks for the links!
Fascinating topic!
What stood out from the topic was that we pretty much have to go out there to be sure of anything....this isn't gonna happen anytime soon i'm afraid!
We would need some kind of much much much faster transportation :/
I wonder to what our horizon are going to extend to in the next 100 years....if technological development maintains its increasingly fast development....things could change tremendously!
In fact we are just at the very very begining of a techonoly "advanced" life. In universe time it has just happen a micro instant ago.