While doing some AM channel surfing last night I came across Michio Kaku( no name jokes pls) on C to C AM.

He was saying that we now have the capability to see vast distances into the cosmos. Acc to him we can see back to within 300,000 light yrs of the Big Bang. He mentioned that many other Solar type systems have been spotted but that it is 'very rare'( in fact he did not name one specifically) to find one as tranquil as ours. He said that most have much more violent activity including objects orbitting in weird elliptical patterns and storms so violent that no oceans can even form.