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.


Episoder(418)

256 | Kelly and Zach Weinersmith on Building Cities on the Moon and Mars

256 | Kelly and Zach Weinersmith on Building Cities on the Moon and Mars

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AMA | November 2023

AMA | November 2023

Welcome to the November 2023 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 Pa...

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255 | Michael Muthukrishna on Developing a Theory of Everyone

255 | Michael Muthukrishna on Developing a Theory of Everyone

A "Theory of Everything" is physicists' somewhat tongue-in-cheek phrase for a hypothetical model of all the fundamental physical interactions. Of course, even if we had such a theory, it would tell us...

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254 | William Egginton on Kant, Heisenberg, and Borges

254 | William Egginton on Kant, Heisenberg, and Borges

It can be tempting, when first introduced to a deep concept of physics like Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, to draw grand philosophical conclusions about the impossibility of knowing anything prec...

23 Okt 20231h 6min

253 | David Deutsch on Science, Complexity, and Explanation

253 | David Deutsch on Science, Complexity, and Explanation

David Deutsch is one of the most creative scientific thinkers working today, who has as a goal to understand and explain the natural world as best we can. He was a pioneer in quantum computing, and ha...

16 Okt 20231h 42min

AMA | October 2023

AMA | October 2023

Welcome to the October 2023 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...

9 Okt 20232h 58min

252 | Hannah Ritchie on Keeping Hope for the Planet Alive

252 | Hannah Ritchie on Keeping Hope for the Planet Alive

Our planet and its environment are in bad shape, in all sorts of ways. Those of us who want to improve the situation face a dilemma. On the one hand, we have to be forceful and clear-headed about how ...

2 Okt 20231h 15min

251 | Rosemary Braun on Uncovering Patterns in Biological Complexity

251 | Rosemary Braun on Uncovering Patterns in Biological Complexity

Biological organisms are paradigmatic emergent systems. That atoms of which they are made mindlessly obey the local laws of physics; even cells and organs do their individual jobs without explicitly u...

25 Sep 20231h 11min

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