Quotes by Carolyn Porco - Page 2

As far as Europa goes, Europa very likely has an ocean under its surface. In that regard, Europa and Enceladus are on equal par. But on Europa, the ocean is at least several kilometers under the surface, and the moon is bathed in an intense radiation field.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Ocean
Intense
Moon
Radiation
Regard
Surface
Par
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As far as I'm concerned, Enceladus has become the go-to place in our solar system for issues bearing on extraterrestrial life. It's a great place to examine extraterrestrial organic chemistry that is water-based and, therefore, like biotic chemistry on Earth.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Chemistry
Concerned
Extraterrestrial
Solar System
Bearing
Examine
Great Place
Organic
Solar
Therefore
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People gravitate to religion to feel a connection to the underlying meaning of everything. Well, as a scientist, you're always looking for the underlying meaning, and that, to me, is such a spiritual life, I wish people would open themselves up to that wonder.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Spiritual Life
Life Religion Me
Gravitate
Meaning Of
Underlying
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It's like there's a pulsating, hidden world, governed by ancient laws and principles, underlying everything around us - from the movements of electrical charges to the motions of the planets - and most people are completely unaware of it. To me, that's a shame.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Ancient
Electrical
Planets
Principles
World Me People
Charges
Governed
Hidden
Motions
Movements
Pulsating
Unaware
Underlying
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The questions that we scientist have about Saturn's rings are the questions that an ordinary person might be moved to ask when first seeing them, you know. What caused them? How did they get there? How long have they been around? How long are they going to last?
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Moved
Ordinary
Ordinary Person
Rings
Saturn
Scientist
Caused
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We had convinced ourselves that conditions wouldn't be right for seeing spokes on the lit side of the rings until about 2007, ... But this finding seems to be telling us that conditions on the dark side of the rings are almost as good right now for seeing spokes.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Dark
Sides
Spokes
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The need for a detailed, comprehensive examination of the Saturn system became clear during the early 1980s, after the two Voyager spacecraft made flybys of the planet. These celebrated events were the opening acts in the story of humanity's exploration of Saturn.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Examination
Exploration
Opening
Saturn
Spacecraft
Acts
Celebrated
Detailed
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Every type of ring behavior we have seen around Jupiter, Uranus, or Neptune can be found in orbit around Saturn. And Saturn's ring system offers the greatest promise of understanding processes in operation within all disk systems, not just those found around planets.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Disk
Jupiter
Neptune
Offers
Orbit
Planets
Promise
Saturn
Type
Understanding
Ring
Operation
Processes
Systems
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Science is not the means by which we come to understand why physical laws and circumstances are the way they are. When we ask why - assuming the question is really 'why' and not 'how' - we are really asking to know the motive of some responsible agent capable of reason.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Assuming
Capable
Circumstances
Motive
Agent
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Titan is the one place in our solar system whose geographical and atmospheric diversity and complexity are rivaled only by the Earth's. It's very Earth-like, but it's also very different, which means we have a lot to learn as well as a prayer of understanding what we find.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Complexity
Prayer
Solar System
Atmospheric
Geographical
Solar
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When the Voyager 2 spacecraft sped through the Saturnian system more than a quarter of a century ago, it came within 90,000 kilometers of the moon Enceladus. Over the course of a few hours, its cameras returned a handful of images that confounded planetary scientists for years.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Cameras
Handful
Moon
Spacecraft
Confounded
Images
Planetary
Quarter
Returned
Scientists
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No matter how you measure it, whether you measure the amount of mass or you measure the number of bodies, most of our solar system exists out beyond the orbits of the asteroids. So we could not have claimed to know our own solar system until Voyager had toured the giant planets.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Mass
Planets
Solar System
Bodies
Claimed
Exists
Giant
Measure
Solar
Toured
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Voyager's passage through Saturn's inner system exposed diverse moons with dynamic forces at work. Titan, Saturn's largest moon, whose surface remained invisible through its thick, ubiquitous haze, nonetheless teased observers with hints of a possible ocean of liquid hydrocarbons.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Ocean
Diverse
Exposed
Haze
Hints
Invisible
Liquid
Moon
Observers
Saturn
Thick
Dynamic
Inner
Largest
Nonetheless
Passage
Remained
Teased
Ubiquitous
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Boy, when you come to study something, and you come to understand it - you know, even if it's just a little discovery that you make, and you come to understand it on your own, it feels it's like the greatest high. It's like you just have found some incredibly secretive thing about nature.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Discovery
Secretive
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It's been an adventure just getting out to Saturn, .. Saturn is such an alluring photographic target. It's a joy, really, to be able to take our images and composite them in an artful way, which is one of my cardinal working goals. It's about poetry and beauty and science all mixed together.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Adventure
Goal
Joy
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I was drawn to astronomy by a teenage existential quest. Around 13, I was deep into wondering about the meaning of life and what I was doing here. I turned to religion, but that did nothing for me. I got to wondering where was here. So, I began studying astronomy and became enthralled by what I learned.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Astronomy
Existential
Meaning Of Life
Teenage
Life Religion Me
Drawn
Meaning Of
Quest
Studying
Wondering
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Voyager found Saturn to be a planet with a complex interior, atmosphere, and magnetosphere. In its rings - a vast, gleaming disk of icy rubble - the mission recorded signs of the same physical mechanisms that were key in configuring the early solar system and similar disks of material around other stars.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Atmosphere
Disk
Icy
Rings
Rubble
Saturn
Solar System
Stars
Complex
Vast
Early
Interior
Mission
Material
Mechanisms
Physical
Planet
Signs
Solar
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I read about eastern philosophy and religion and existentialism. All that introspective thinking got me thinking about the great beyond. That turned my sights from inwards to outwards, and I started becoming interested in the makeup of the universe, and I started reading about astronomy, planets, and galaxies.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Astronomy
Eastern
Introspective
Planets
Galaxies
Sights
Started Reading
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The Saturn system is a rich planetary system. It offers mystery, scientific insight, and obviously splendour beyond compare, and the investigation of this system has enormous cosmic reach... just studying the rings alone, we stand to learn a lot about the discs of stars and gas that we call the spiral galaxies.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Compare
Cosmic
Enormous
Gas
Insight
Investigation
Mystery
Offers
Rich
Rings
Saturn
Splendour
Stars
Beyond
Galaxies
Obviously
Planetary
Reach
Scientific
Spiral
Studying
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The Huygens images were everything our images from orbit were not. Instead of hazy, sinuous features that we could only guess were streams and drainage channels, here was incontrovertible evidence that at some point in Titan's history - and perhaps even now - there were flowing liquid hydrocarbons on the surface.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Drainage
Features
Hazy
Liquid
Orbit
Streams
Channels
Even Now
Flowing
Images
Incontrovertible
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Scientists tend to come in two stripes: those who have tremendous appetite and aptitude for the details, and those who illuminate the big picture. Sagan was definitely in the latter category, and he was profoundly good at it. He made connections that others did not have the intellectual breadth or courage to make.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Appetite
Aptitude
Big Picture
Breadth
Connections
Details
Intellectual
Latter
Stripes
Category
Tremendous
Illuminate
Profoundly
Scientists
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The reasons why images are so primal and people immediately relate to it is that we are exquisitely engineered to interpret information that is arrayed in two dimensions. That's our eyesight. That's how our eye-brain system works. So it immediately feels to us when we look at an image like we have extended our senses.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Dimensions
Eyesight
Primal
Senses
Engineered
Exquisitely
Images
Interpret
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Cassini was an international undertaking, led by NASA and the European Space Agency and designed to be, in every dimension, a dramatic advance over Voyager. At the size of a school bus, it was bigger than Voyager and outfitted with the most sophisticated scientific instruments ever carried into the outer solar system.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Agency
Bus
Dramatic
Instruments
Nasa
Solar System
Advance
Carried
Designed
Dimension
Outer
Scientific
Solar
Undertaking
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The book that blew the doors off the house, grabbing me with its breathtakingly deep and irresistible view of the universe and our relation to it, was 'Intelligent Life in the Universe' by I. S. Shklovskii and Carl Sagan. I recall an enchanting all-nighter completing a college homework assignment to read the first chapter.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Completing
Doors
Enchanting
Grabbing
Homework
Intelligent
Intelligent Life
Irresistible
Relation
Life Universe Me
Assignment
Blew
Chapter
Life View Me
Recall
The Doors
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Titan has no liquid water on its surface, and any liquid water beneath its surface is inaccessible to us, as far as we know. It has hydrocarbon lakes, but we don't know of any organisms that could live in those, not at the temperatures that we find on Titan. Any reference to possible life in lakes on the surface of Titan is pure speculation.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Inaccessible
Lakes
Liquid
Organisms
Pure
Speculation
Beneath
Reference
Temperatures
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Even by the diverse standards of Saturn's satellites, Enceladus was an outlier. Its icy surface was as white and bright as fresh snow, and whereas the other airless moons were heavily pocked with craters, Enceladus was mantled in places with extensive plains of smooth, uncratered terrain, a clear sign of past internally driven geologic activity.
Carolyn Porco / Scientist
Activity
Clear
Diverse
Driven
Icy
Satellites
Saturn
Smooth
Snow
Standards
Terrain
Bright
Extensive
Places
Sign
Whereas
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Carolyn Porco Quotes - Page 2

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