“If you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are a-bloom with flowers . . .”

– The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The discovery of life on another planet would light up space in a way for exploration that few could ever truly imagine. Just imagine: a night’s sky with all the stars and planets alight – in this too-big, too-vast universe – hosting some form of life. And each of those forms of life developing on their own terms, perhaps unaware of the myriad other forms of life that surround them. It’s a discovery that would revolutionise late-night dates lying on car bonnets, improve remote camping trips around tiny fires, and change science as we once knew it.