Oceans Beyond Earth by Kevin Peter Hand

We often look to Mars as the most promising place to look for life beyond Earth, but recent exploration missions have shown that the most habitable bodies in the solar system lie much further out in space. Beneath the icy crusts of Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune lie vast subsurface oceans, containing 50 times more liquid water than all the oceans on Earth combined. The underside of this icy crust is like the seabed turned upside down, and could well be a habitat rich in ecological niches. Drawing on his own research into Earth’s oceans, Hand ponders what life is, what tools are needed to find it, and what it might be like on those distant icy worlds.

"Oceans Beyond Earth" is a fascinating scientific story about how the combination of planetary science, biology, and engineering expands our understanding of space, oceans, and, indeed, life itself.

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