Carolyn Porco
Carolyn Porco
Carolyn C. Porcois an American planetary scientist known for her work in the exploration of the outer solar system, beginning with her imaging work on the Voyager missions to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in the 1980s. She leads the imaging science team on the Cassini mission currently in orbit around Saturn. She is an expert on planetary rings and the Saturnian moon, Enceladus...
density gravity seen spiral structures
We have never seen anything like this before. There are spiral structures in the rings, there are gravity and density waves, but they are completely different things,
best last looking moment seen
We are at this very moment looking to see what the best times are for retargeting. Hopefully, we haven't seen the last of them.
acquired details express fine images orbit purpose rings seeing seen
We acquired this spectacular, one-of-a-kind set of images immediately after getting into orbit for the express purpose of seeing fine details in the rings that we had not seen previously.
flew turned
They flew through what turned out to be a plume.
ball evidence far grail hit holy liquid planetary solar somewhere water
As far as I'm concerned, we just hit the ball out of the park. This is the Holy Grail of modern-day planetary exploration, evidence of liquid water somewhere else in the solar system.
closer conducting scientific spent surface time water winner
So, water closer to the surface and more time spent conducting scientific investigations....sounds like a winner to me.
confident exhausted fairly liquid
So we think we have a Yellowstone-type liquid geyser tens of meters deep. We're fairly confident because we have exhausted all the other models.
liquid living potential
Once you have liquid water, you have the potential for living organisms.
discovered extended hope
After what we've discovered with Cassini, if we don't get an extended mission, then there's no hope for anybody.
heart surely thrilling
This has been a heart-stopper, and surely one of our most thrilling results.
connection forget planet realized tremendous
I'll never forget when I realized there was this connection -- it was tremendous to know something that no one else on the planet knew,
ice produces water
Once the water comes out it freezes, and that produces copious amounts of ice particles.
clear contain crystals determine device future greater ice left means precision require themselves
It's not clear that Cassini has the means to determine if the ice crystals themselves contain microbes. It may require a device with much greater compositional precision than we have, so that may have to be left for a future mission.
conditions diversity living might possibly solar system
However, if we are right, we have significantly broadened the diversity of solar system environments where we might possibly have conditions suitable for living organisms.