From our friends at:
"Today, every few weeks brings news of a new Jupiter-sized extra-solar planet being discovered, the latest being about 15 light years away orbiting around the star Gliese 876. The most spectacular of these findings was photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope, which captured breathtaking photos of a planet 450 light years away being sling-shot into space by a double-star system.
"But the best is yet to come. Early in the next decade, scientists will launch a new kind of telescope, the interferometry space telescope, which uses the interference of light beams to enhance the resolving power of telescopes."
— Michio Kaku, Theoretical physicist and host of BBC series Visions of the Future.
In a brilliant essay, Michio Kaku observes that although conjecture about advanced civilizations a matter of sheer speculation, we can still use the laws of quantum field theory, general relativity, thermodynamics, to place upper and lower limits on these civilizations.
