I disagree with that "pretty easy to see" part.
We only recently have been close enough to Pluto to see it's surface.
We only know of 'goldilocks' planets because of their occultation of the light from their star. We couldn't see 'life' on another planet in another solar system even in our own, tiny, indistinguishable galaxy.
If life can self-assemble from available materials on a celestial body, then odds are it should have done so on at least one or two other planets in our own solar system. We've gotten pretty good looks at those and see nothing...nada...zilch.