NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC LIVE PRESENTS KEVIN HAND
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KEVIN HAND: THE SEARCH FOR LIFE BEYOND EARTH
Astro biologist and National Geographic Emerging Explorer KevinHand 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 ¾a 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 MountKilimanjaro, the valleys of Antarctica, and the depths of our oceans.
Aside from his compelling scientific work, Hand founded Cosmos Education, a nonprofit organization that empowers some of Africa’s poorest children through science, health, and environmental education. In 2005, Hand appeared alongside directorJames Cameron in Aliens of the Deep, applying his knowledge about extraterrestrial environments to Earth’s own unexplored territories. And in the summer of 2012,Hand joined Cameron’s team on his historic Challenger Deep dive into theMarianas Trench, the deepest place on the planet. Join Hand for a firsthand report on the search for real extraterrestrials.
