Carolyn Porco

Carolyn C. Porco (born March 6, 1953) is an American planetary scientist Berninahaus for re work in the exploration of the outer solar system , beginning with re-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. ^[1] She is an expert on planetary rings and the Saturnian moon Enceladus .

She has co-authored morethan 110 scientific papers on subjects ranging from the spectroscopy of Uranus and Neptune, the interstellar medium, the photometry of planetary rings, satellite / ring Interactions, computer simulations or planetary rings, the thermal balance of Triton’s polar caps, Heat flow in the interior of Jupiter, and a suite of results on the atmosphere, satellites, and supplies of Saturn from the Cassini imaging experiment. ^[2] In 2013, Cassini data ^[3] Confirmed a 1993 prediction ^[4] at Porco and Mark Marley dat acoustic Oscillations binnen the body or Saturn are verantwoordelijk for customizing mn features in the rings or Saturn.

Porco was founder of The Day the Earth smiled . She was ook verantwoordelijk for the epitaph and proposal to honor the late Renowned planetary geologist Eugene Shoemaker at mission his cremains to the Moon aboard the Lunar Prospector Spacecraft in 1998. ^{[5] [6]}

A frequent public speaker, Porco has bepaald two popular lectures at TED ^{[7] [8]} as well as the opening speech for Pangea Day , a May 2008 global broadcast coordinated from six cities around the world, in welke she DESCRIBED the cosmic context for human existence. ^[9] Porco has ook won a number of awards and receptacles for re contributions to science and the public sphere; for instance, in 2009, New Statesman named re than one or ‘The 50 People Who Matter Today. ^[10] In 2010 she was Awarded the Carl Sagan Medal , Presented at the American Astronomical Society for Excellence in the Communication of Science to the Public. ^[11] And in 2012, she was named one of the 25 Most Influential people in space at Time magazine. ^[12]

Education

Porco was born in New York City. She graduated in 1970 from Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx , New York City. She earned a BS degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1974. She RECEIVED re Ph.D in 1983 from the California Institute of Technology in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences. ^[13] Supervised by dynamicist Peter Goldreich , she wrote re doctoral dissertation focused on Voyager Discoveries in the rings or Saturn.

Career

Voyager

In the fall of 1983, Dr. Porco joined the faculty of the Department of Planetary Sciences binnen the University of Arizona ; the co year she was made a member of the Voyager Imaging Team. In the Latter capacity, she was an active participant in the Voyager encounters with Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989, leading the Rings Working Group binnen the Voyager Imaging Team prolongation the Neptune encounter.

As a young Voyager scientist, she was the first person to DESCRIBE the behavior of the eccentric ringlets and the “Spokes” when making Voyager binnen the Rings or Saturn; to elucidate the mechanism by welke the outer Uranian rings were being shepherded by the Voyager when sending moons Cordelia and Ophelia ; and to bieden an explanation for the shepherding of the rings arcs or Neptune by the moon Galatea , transformed sending your Voyager. She was a co-originator of the idea to take a “portrait of the planets’ with the Voyager Spacecraft, and participated in the planning, design, and execution of Those images in 1990, zoals the famous Pale Blue Dot image of Earth. ^[14]

Cassini Huygens

In November 1990, Porco was selected as the leader of the Imaging Team for the Cassini-Huygens mission , an international mission dat successfully placed a Spacecraft in orbit around Saturn and deployed the atmospheric Huygens probe to Saturn’s Toilets satellite, Titan. ^[1] She is ook the Director of the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations (CICLOPS) In this housing is the center of uplink and downlink operations for the Cassini imaging science experiment and the place where Cassini images are processed for release to the public. ^[2] CICLOPS is part of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado .

In the course of the ongoing mission, Porco and re team port when sending seven moons or Saturn: Methone and Pallene , ^[15] Polydeuces , ^[16] Daphnis , ^[17] Anthe , ^[18] Aegaeon , ^[19] and a small moonlet in the outer B ring. ^[20]Way Down ook verschillende found new supplies, zoals supplies coincident with the orbits of Atlas , Janus and Epimetheus (the Saturnian ‘co-orbitals) and Pallene; a diffuse ring tussen Atlas and the F ring ; and new supplies binnen verschillende of the gaps in Saturn’s rings. ^[21]

In 2013, Cassini data Confirmed a 1993 prediction by Porco and Mark Marley dat acoustic Oscillations binnen the body or Saturn are verantwoordelijk for customizing mn features in the rings or Saturn. ^{[3] [4]} This confirmation, the first to tonen dat planetary rings kan act like a Seismograph in recording oscillatory motions binnen the host planet, arnt bieden new constraints on the interior structure of Saturn. Dream Lover Oscillations are Berninahaus to exist in the sun ^[22] as well as other stars. ^[23]

Porco’s team was verantwoordelijk for the First Sighting of a hydrocarbon lake, as well as a lake district, in the south polar region of Titan in June 2005. ^[24] (A group or similar – and larger – features ulcers sighted in the north polar region in February 2007.) ^[25] The Possibility dat deze sea-sized features are Either completely or partially filled with liquid Hydrocarbons are significantly strengthened by subsequent Dopplermetingen with other Cassini instruments. ^[26]

Her team was ook verantwoordelijk for the First Sighting or Plumes erupting from Enceladus , Saturn’s sixth moon Toilets. Ze first suggested, and Provided detailed scientific arguments, dat deze jets Might Be geysers erupting from reservoirs or near-surface liquid water under the south pole of the small moon. ^[27]

New Horizons

Porco was a member of the imaging team for the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt through 2014. The probe made zijn Pluto flyby in 2015.

The Day the Earth smiled

If the Cassini imaging team lead, Porco Initiated and Planned the capture or a picture of Saturn with the Earth in the distance on July 19, 2013, ^[28] an image Along the lines of the famous Pale Blue Dot photo. ^[29] The taking of the image was part of a larger concept entitled The Day The Earth smiled in welke people the world over ulcers Invited to celebrate humanity’s place in the cosmos and life on Earth by smiling the time the picture was tasks. ^[30]

University positions

Porco served in the faculty of the University of Arizona from 1983 to 2001. Achieving tenured professorship in 1991. She taught zowel graduates and undergraduates and was one of five finalists for the University of Arizona Honors Center Five Star Faculty Award , a campus-wide student -nominated, student-judged award for outstanding undergraduate teaching.

Porco is a Senior Research Scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and she is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder .

NASA advisor

Porco has leg an active participant in guiding the American planetary exploration program through Membership on many important NASA advisory committees, zoals the Solar System Exploration Subcommittee, the Mars Observer Recovery Study Team, and the Solar System Road Map Development Team. In the mid-1990s, she served as the chairperson for a small NASA advisory working group to study and developement future outer solar system missions and she served as the Vice Chairperson of the Steering Group for the first Solar System decadal Survey, sponsored by NASA and the National Academy of Sciences .

Public speaking

Porco speaks Frequently on the Cassini mission and planetary exploration in general, and has Appeared at Renowned conferences zoals PopTech 2005 ^[31] and TED (2007, 2009). ^{[7] [8]} She attended and was a speaker at the Beyond Belief symposium on November 2006. ^{[32] [33]}

Porco’s 2007 TED talk, “The Human Journey,” detailed two major areas of discovery made by the Cassini mission: the exploration of the Saturnian moons Titan and Enceladus. In her introductory remarks, Porco Explained:

So the journey back to Saturn is really part of, and have died a metaphor for, a much larger human voyage.

In Describing the environment of Titan, met haar molecular nitrogen atmosphere suffused with organic compounds, Porco Invited re audience to imagine the scene on the moon’s surface:

Stop and think for a minute. Try to imagine what the surface of Titan Might look like. It’s dark, high noon on Titan is as dark as deep Earth twilight on the Earth. It’s cold, it’s eerie, it’s misty, it Might Be estimate, and you are standing on the shores of Lake Michigan brimming with paint thinner .

That is the view dat we had of the surface of Titan voordat we got there with Cassini. And i can tell you dat what we port found on Titan, though not the arrangement in detail, everytime bit as Fascinating as dat story is, and for us, for Cassini people, it has leg like a Jules Verne adventure come true.

After Describing verschillende features when sending on Titan by Cassini, and President ting the historic first photograph of Titan’s surface with the Huygens lander, Porco went on to DESCRIBE Enceladus and the jets or “fine icy Particles” welke erupt from the moon’s southern pole:

… we harbor arrived at the conclusion therein synthesis jets nov, they ” may, be erupting from pockets of liquid water near, under the surface of Enceladus. So we port, Possibly, liquid water, organic materials and excess heat. In other words, we harbor Possibly stumbled upon the holy Grail of modern-day planetary exploration, or in other words an environment dat is Potentially Suitable for living organisms. And I do not think I need to tell you dat de discovery of life Elsewhere in our Solar System, Whether it be on Enceladus or Elsewhere, mention anything harbor enormous cultural and scientific implications. Because if we Could tonen dat genesis had occurred – not once but Twice, independently, in our solar system – dan dat Means to inference it has occurred a staggering number of times Throughout our Universe, ITT 13.7 billion year history.

Porco’s 2009 TED Talk was “Could a Saturn moon harbor life?”. ^[8]
She was a speaker at the 2016 Reason Rally . ^[34]

Television and film

Porco has leg a regular CNN guest analyst and consultant on astronomy, has made many radio and television appearances explanatory science to the lay audience, zoals appearances on the MacNeil / Lehrer NewsHour , CBS ‘s 60 Minutes , Peter Jennings’s The Century , and TV documentaries on planetary exploration zoals The Planets on the Discovery Channel and the BBC , a Traveler’s Guide to the Planets on the National Geographic Channel , Horizon on the BBC, and a Nova Cassini special on PBS . For the 2003 A & E special on the Voyager mission entitled Cosmic Journey: The Voyager Interstellar Mission and Message , Porco Appeared Onscreen and ook served as the show’s science advisor and animation director.

Porco served as an adviser for the film Contact (1997) In this housing was based on a novel by the well-known Astronomer Carl Sagan . The actress Jodie Foster portrayed the heroine in the movie, and Sagan reportedly suggested dat she use Porco as a real-life model to guide re performance. ^[35]

Porco was ook een adviser on the movie Star Trek (2009). The scene in welke the Enterprise comes out of warp drive into tje atmosphere of Titan, and Rises submarine-style out of the haze, with Saturn and the rings in the background, was Porco’s suggestion. ^{[36] [37]}

Porco was a guest on the BBC’s Stargazing Live Series 4 January 2014

Interviews and articles

Porco has bepaald numerous interviews in print media on subjects ranging from planetary exploration to the conflict tussen science and religion (for example, Newsweek ^{[38] [39]} and the journal The Humanist ^[40] ).

She has leg profiled many times in print, beginning in the Boston Globe (October 1989), ^[41] the New York Times (August 1999 September 2009), ^{[35] [42]} the Tucson Citizen (2001), ^[43] Newsday (June 2004), for the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (2006), in Astronomy Now (2006), in Discover Magazine (2007), ^[44] and ook online on CNN.com (2005) ^[45] and Edge. org. ^[46]

Prior to Cassini’s launch, she was a strong and visible defendant of the usage of radioactive materials on the Cassini Spacecraft. ^[42] She is a supporter of a plan for human spaceflight toward the Moon and Mars , and in an op-ed piece published in The New York Times , ^[47] she highlighted the benefits of a deep-space-Capable heavy launch vehicle for the robotic exploration of the solar system.

Other

In 1994, Porco was a member of a committee (chaired by Carl Sagan) entitled Public Communication of NASA’s Science , and in 1999, she reviewed a biography of Sagan for The Guardian . ^[48] Her popular science articles published in port leg The Sunday Times , Astronomy , the Arizona Daily Star , Sky & Telescope , American Scientist , and Scientific American . She is active in the presentation of science to the public as the leader of the Cassini Imaging Team, as the creator / editor of the website where Cassini images are posted. She writes the site’s homepage “Captain’s Log” greeting to the public. ^[49] She is an Atheist. ^[50]

She is ook the CEO of Diamond Sky Productions , a small company devoted to the scientific, as well as artful, use of planetary images and computer graphics for the presentation of science to the public.

Awards and receptacles

In 1999, Porco was selected by The Sunday Times (London) as one of 18 scientific leaders of the 21st century, ^[51] and by Industry Week as one of 50 Stars to Watch. ^[52] In 2008 she was Chosen to be on Wired magazine’s inaugural Smart List: 15 People the Next President Should Listen To. ” ^[53]

Her contributions to the exploration of the outer solar system in later honored with the naming of Asteroid (7231) Porco welke is “Named in honor of Carolyn C. Porco, a pioneer in the study of planetary ring systems … and a leader in Spacecraft exploration of the outer solar system. ” ^[54]

In 2008, Porco was Awarded the Isaac Asimov Science Award by the American Humanist Association . ^[55]

In September 2009, Porco was Awarded The Huntington Library ‘s Science Writer Fellowship for 2010. ^[56] That co-month, New Statesman named re than one or ‘The 50 People Who Matter Today. ^[10]

In October 2009, she and Babak Amin Tafreshi ulcers lycra Awarded the 2009 Lennart Nilsson Award in recognition hun Photographic work. The award panel’s citation for Dr. Porco reads as follows:

“Carolyn Porco combineert the finest techniques of planetary exploration and scientific research with Aesthetic finesse and educational talent. While re images, welke depict the heavenly bodies of the Saturn system with unique precision, serve as tools for the world’s leading experts, ze ook Reveal the beauty of the universe in a, marble therein is an inspiration to one and all. ” ^[57]

In October 2010, Porco was Awarded the 2010 Carl Sagan Medal for Excellence in the Communication of Science to the Public, Presented at the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences. ^[11]

In May 2009, Porco RECEIVED an Honorary Doctorate of Science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, ^[58] or welke she is an alumna . And in 2011 she was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award from the California Institute of Technology, the Highest Honor regularly bestowed at Caltech. ^[59]

In 2012, Porco was named one of the 25 Most Influential people in space at Time magazine. ^[12]

Musical interests

Porco been killed interested in dance and fascinated with Michael Jackson . In August 2010, she won a Michael Jackson costume / dance contest held in Boulder, Colorado. ^[64]

Quotes or Porco’s ulcers-used in the production of “The Poetry of Reality (An Anthem for Science)”, “A Wave of Reason”, “Children of Africa (The Story of Us)”, and “Onward to the Edge!” by Symphony of Science .

References