92 | Kevin Hand on Life Elsewhere in the Solar System

92 | Kevin Hand on Life Elsewhere in the Solar System

It's hard doing science when you only have one data point, especially when that data point is subject to an enormous selection bias. That's the situation faced by people studying the nature and prevalence of life in the universe. The only biosphere we know about is our own, and our knowing anything at all is predicated on its existence, so it's unclear how much it can teach us about the bigger picture. That's why it's so important to search for life elsewhere. Today's guest is Kevin Hand, a planetary scientist and astrobiologist who knows as much as anyone about the prospects for finding life right in our planetary backyard, on moons and planets in the Solar System. We talk about how life comes to be, and reasons why it might be lurking on Europa, Titan, or elsewhere.

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Kevin Hand received his Ph.D. in Geological and Environmental Sciences from Stanford University. He is currently Deputy Chief Scientist for Solar System Exploration at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He has collaborated with director James Cameron, and is a frequent consultant on films, including acting as a science advisor to the movie Europa Report. His a cofounder of Cosmos Education, a non-profit organization devoted to science education in developing countries. His new book is Alien Oceans: The Search for Life in the Depths of Space.


Jaksot(415)

333 | Gordon Pennycook on Unthinkingness, Conspiracies, and What to Do About Them

333 | Gordon Pennycook on Unthinkingness, Conspiracies, and What to Do About Them

Why are people wrong all the time, anyway? Is it because we human beings are too good at being irrational, using our biases and motivated reasoning to convince ourselves of something that isn't quite ...

27 Loka 20251h 10min

332 | Dmitri Tymoczko on the Mathematics Behind Music

332 | Dmitri Tymoczko on the Mathematics Behind Music

Music is math that you can dance to. The fact that certain notes sound good when played together, or in succession, is related to the mathematical properties of the frequencies to which they correspon...

20 Loka 20251h 21min

AMA | October 2025

AMA | October 2025

Welcome to the October 2025 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Pat...

13 Loka 20253h 37min

331 | Solo: Fine-Tuning, God, and the Multiverse

331 | Solo: Fine-Tuning, God, and the Multiverse

Certain features of our universe seem unnatural to us. These include "constants of nature" such as the cosmological constant and the mass of the Higgs boson, as well as features of the initial conditi...

6 Loka 20251h 54min

330 | Petter Törnberg on the Dynamics of (Mis)Information

330 | Petter Törnberg on the Dynamics of (Mis)Information

A characteristic of complex systems is that individual components combine to exhibit large-scale emergent behavior even when the components were not specifically designed for any particular purpose wi...

29 Syys 20251h 12min

329 | Steven Pinker on Rationality and Common Knowledge

329 | Steven Pinker on Rationality and Common Knowledge

Getting along in society requires that we mostly adhere to certainly shared norms and customs. Often it's not enough that we all know what the rules are, but also that everyone else knows the rules, a...

22 Syys 20251h 16min

328 | Mary Roach on Replacing Parts of Our Bodies

328 | Mary Roach on Replacing Parts of Our Bodies

Like any machine, bodies occasionally break down, and it's natural to go in search of a replacement part. Ancient societies featured simple prosthetics for teeth, noses, and limbs, while modern medici...

15 Syys 20251h 7min

AMA | September 2025

AMA | September 2025

Welcome to the September 2025 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by P...

8 Syys 20253h 30min

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