Astrobiologist and National Geographic Emerging Explorer Kevin Hand searches for life beyond Earth. He is currently helping plan a NASA mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa to investigate evidence of a vast subsurface ocean – a body of water which could sustain primitive forms of life on this alien world nearly 600 million miles from our planet.
Based at Pasadena’s world-famous Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Hand designs instruments for the probe that will travel to Europa. To gain perspective on the conditions these instruments will have to endure, and to see how microbes eke out a living in our world’s harshest climes, Hand has traveled to the most forbidding environments on Earth. He has conducted studies on the glaciers of Mount Kilimanjaro, the valleys of Antartica, and the depths of our oceans.
Join Hand for a firsthand report on the search for real extraterrestrials.