Since our galaxy contains at least 200 billion stars, this implies a vast arena for the universe’s ubiquitous carbon chemistry to play in — a process that, as here on Earth, might lead to the complex machinery of life. Indeed, there is a 95-percent confidence — give or take a few percent — that one of these worlds could be within a mere 16 light years of us. That’s a stone’s throw, practically our galactic backyard.

And it’s really only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Even in our own solar system we have our suspicions that environments inside ice-rich moons around Jupiter or Saturn could also represent life-amenable zones. We know too that the conditions humans find palatable are not the same as those for countless other species. The opportunities for life seem enormous.

This incredible abundance of planets in our galaxy is a portent of what’s to come; the first shot fired; the first statement of intent in a new revolution. It doesn’t yet tell us whether or not we are alone in the universe or, as in the Copernican outlook, merely one among billions. But it is already telling us something shockingly profound.

Because the universe makes so many planets, the chances of our finding others that we can actually study in detail increases enormously. Until now there was nothing we knew about the universe that made this inevitable. Planets could have been few and far between. Even if there were billions in total, they could have been scattered thinly across the cosmos. Thus, it was still a possibility that we’d forever be like the lonely ship’s spotter, vainly looking for land from the crow’s-nest.

Instead, the age-old dream of finding other life in the cosmos, whether silent microbes or noisy technological civilizations, has just taken a very sharp turn for the positive.

It really is true therefore that we stand on the verge of learning more about the nature of life, and of our own significance, than at any other time in human history.