It probably depends on what we find. If we're talking about alien microbes or plant life, my guess is that there would be a lot of excited chatter and memeing, and that people would acclimate to it fairly quickly (though with a fringe of denialists as well). I mean, if I'm not mistaken, it hasn't even been a hundred years since we confirmed that there were other galaxies outside of ours, which is a mind-boggling discovery when you actually think about it, but I don't get the sense that it really impinged on people's everyday consciousness. I could see it sharply accelerating further space exploration.
― jmm, Wednesday, 19 October 2022 15:23 (one year ago) link