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What about a terraformable world?
Say Alpha Centauri has an earth-like world, but not really earth as it is now, but as it was preCambrian. A world with half as much water, a reasonable length of day and liquid water. Multi-cellular life never evolved. The Centauri system was too stable. The atmosphere is about 10% O2 and a little bit thicker. Harsh UV hits the surface, but life exists as algae in the small seas. Earth plants could grow there and people could exist.
What do yo say to that?
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With a decent telescope we could detect such a world, although we wouldn't be able to tell that it only had single celled life. It would certainly prompt people to send a probe, but unfortunately it takes us over a decade to reach Uranus, so by the time we could build a ship that could get humans there, our technology and culture would be dramatically different. It would make the colonization vs. environmental protection debate quite different and possibly irrelevant.