Consequences of the Discovery of Life: Some Thoughts - CM What will be the consequences of the discovery of life outside of the Earth? At this moment, trying to give an answer will, of course, involve a considerable amount of guesswork. However, a look at how people reacted to major paradigmatic changes in the past, notably the 'introduction' of the heliocentric world system, may offer a clue to what we might expect. I am not thinking of high-profile legal or political 'fall out' (of which Giordano Bruno and Galilo fell victim), but of the mental process required by us to re-arrange ourselves in a world which turned out to be very different from what we had previously thought, or been told to think. What many people saw as humankind's 'fall from grace', the physical dislodging from the centre of 'the world', also turned out to spur human imagination, to set us on a path of enquiry to unlock the mysteries of the natural world. The great scientific strides of the last century, the discovery of the galaxies, the idea of the expansion of the Universe, the theory of relativity with its bizarre manifestations, gave renewed impetus to our thirst and drive for knowledge and understanding. The discovery of life outside of the Earth, in whatever from it may be, will surely be the most profound scientific achievement ever, but this time, rather than degrading humankind to play its role on an even more distant - and in a certain sense- unimportant stage in the Universe, it may actually make us see ourselves as important members of a family of living beings. Claus Madsen - ESO European Affairs Officer