Meet the man looking for aliens--in the Arctic

You might not expect an oceanographer to be high on NASA's speed dial, but when the space agency needed help mounting a mission to Jupiter's ice-covered moon Europa, it called one: Chris German. Ever since the geochemist found hydrothermal vents teeming with life in the Atlantic Ocean in 1997, he's been an Indiana Jones in the search for vents, creatures, and the origins of life. A senior scientist at Woods Hole, German was among the first to use programmable underwater robots to explore the seafloor. The skill to operate them in difficult conditions--15,000 feet deep and under 10-foot-thick ice--is what NASA likes about him. Last September, they teamed up for a two-month Arctic expedition, a dry run for what NASA might one day try on Europa.