kim stanley robinson's aurora from last year is a good example. though i guess we're only talking about "hard" science fiction.

you're right....we really have no idea what to expect.

it's hard for us to even wrap our heads around the distances and the possibilities. but it's exciting though. i was talking about this with my class today, and it's pretty fucking amazing (even though i think it was suspected) that there's a planet this close, that's almost Earth size, and that it's getting similar amounts of energy from promixa as we do from the sun.

at this point, it seems like the technology and will *might* be out there to find evidence of extrasolar life and maybe even send probes within our lifetimes, which i wouldn't have believed possible a decade ago.