Big Picture Science - A New Hope for Life In Space
Alien life. A flurry of recent discoveries has shifted the odds of finding it. Scientists use the Kepler telescope to spot a planet the same size and temperature as Earth … and announce that there could be tens of billions of similar worlds, just in our galaxy!
Plus, new gravity data suggests a mammoth reservoir of water beneath the icy skin of Saturn’s moon Enceladus … and engineers are already in a race to design drills that can access the subsurface ocean of another moon, Jupiter’s Europa.
Meanwhile, Congress holds hearings to assess the value of looking for life in space. Seth Shostak goes to Washington to testify. Hear what he said and whether the exciting discoveries in astrobiology have stimulated equal enthusiasm among those who hold the purse strings.
Guests:
- Elisa Quintana – Research scientist at the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center
- Christopher McKay – Planetary scientist, NASA Ames Research Center
- Victoria Siegel – Autonomous systems engineer for Stone Aerospace Inc.
- Cynthia Phillips – Planetary geologist, SETI Institute
Permalink: http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/A_New_Hope_for_Life_In_Space
You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.
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