> with a nice telescope Not sure about that. Given that we've only discovered a thousand or so exoplanets, and that our galactic neighbourhood contains million

> with a nice telescope Not sure about that. Given that we've only discovered a thousand or so exoplanets, and that our galactic neighbourhood contains millions of stars that probably mostly have planets, and that we've only recently spotted any that are Earth-like and in the habitable zone, I'd guess that most inhabitants of the neighbourhood have no idea this planet exists. I think the obsessive focus on alien life is misguided, and a waste of time and money. It's so certain that there is extraterrestrial life that it would add essentially nothing to our knowledge if we found evidence of life on an exoplanet. We couldn't visit them, they couldn't visit us. If we tried to visit an exoplanet, we'd have evolved into something else by the time we arrived. So my guess is that there is a very short period in the development of civilisation when "people" (including aliens) are interested in space aliens. I suspect it kicks in when "people" first understand that they are living on a spherical planet orbiting a star, and that there are many, many other stars. And I suspect it fades away when they realize that it can never make any difference to anything.