Carolyn Porco

Carolyn Porco (born March 6 1953 in New York City) is 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. Presently, she leads the imaging science team on the Cassini mission [http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov Cassini-Huygens: Mission to Saturn & Titan] ] [http://www.nasa.gov/cassini Cassini-Huygens: Close Encounter with Saturn] ] [http://saturn.esa.int Cassini-Huygens] ] presently in orbit around Saturn. She is also an imaging scientist on the New Horizons [ [http://pluto.jhuapl.edu New Horizons: NASA's Pluto-Kuiper Belt Mission] ] mission launched to Pluto on January 19 2006. She is an expert on planetary rings and the Saturnian moon, Enceladus.

She has co-authored over 80 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 of 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 rings of Saturn from the Cassini imaging experiment. [ [http://ciclops.org/sci/index.php Cassini Imaging Team Scientific Publications] ]

Porco was responsible for the epitaph and proposal to honor the late renowned planetary geologist Eugene Shoemaker by sending his cremains to the Moon aboard the Lunar Prospector spacecraft in 1998. [ [http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=4119 "Astronomy", February 2000 "Destination Moon"] ] [ [http://ciclops.org/public/tribute.html Eugene M. Shoemaker: A Tribute] ]

A frequent public speaker, Porco gave the opening speech [ [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suQrWrr5T1M&feature=PlayList&p=513710693537BF21&index=1 Introduction to Pangea Day] ] for Pangea Day, a global broadcast coordinated from 6 cities around the world that took place on May 10, 2008, in which she described the cosmic context for human existence.

Career

Porco received her Ph.D. degree in 1983 from the California Institute of Technology in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences. Her doctoral dissertation focused on Voyager discoveries in the rings of Saturn and was supervised by renowned dynamicist Peter Goldreich.

Voyager

In the fall of 1983, Dr Porco joined the faculty of the Department of Planetary Sciences within the University of Arizona; the same 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 within the Voyager Imaging Team during the Neptune encounter.

As a young Voyager scientist, she was the first person to describe the behavior of the eccentric ringlets and the "spokes" discovered by Voyager within the rings of Saturn, to elucidate the mechanism by which the outer Uranian rings were being shepherded by the Voyager-discovered moons Cordelia and Ophelia, and to provide an explanation for the shepherding of the rings arcs of Neptune by the moon Galatea, also discovered by 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 1991, including the famous Pale Blue Dot image of Earth. [ [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0345376595 C. Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (New York: Ballantine Books, 1997)] ]

Cassini-Huygens

In November 1990, Dr Porco was selected as the leader of the Imaging Team for the Cassini-Huygens mission^,, an international mission that successfully placed a spacecraft in orbit around Saturn and deployed the atmospheric Huygens probe to Saturn's largest satellite, Titan. She is also the Director of the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS (CICLOPS), which 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. [http://ciclops.org CICLOPS] ] CICLOPS is part of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

Dr Porco and her team discovered five moons around Saturn: Methone, Pallene, Polydeuces, Daphnis, and Anthe. [ [http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iauc/08300/08389.html#Item1 C.C. Porco, et al., IAUC 8389 - discovery of S/2004 S 1 (Methone) and S/2004 S 2 (Pallene)] ] [ [http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iauc/08400/08432.html C.C. Porco, et al., IAUC 8432 - discovery of S/2004 S 5 (Polydeuces)] (November 8, 2004)] [ [http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iauc/08400/08471.html IAUC 8471 - naming of Methone and Pallene] (January 21, 2005)] [ [http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iauc/08400/08471.html IAUC 8471 - naming of Polydeuces] (January 21, 2005)] [ [http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iauc/08500/08524.html C.C. Porco et al., IAUC 8524: discovery of S/2005 S 1 (Daphnis)] ] [ [http://ciclops.org/sci/reports.php C. C. Porco et al. "Cassini Imaging Science: Initial Results on Saturn's Rings and Small Satellites". Science, vol. 307, no. 5713, pp. 1226-1236] ]

Porco's Cassini team have also found several new rings, such as rings coincident with the orbits of Atlas, Janus and Epimetheus (the Saturnian 'co-orbitals') and Pallene, a diffuse ring between Atlas and the F ring, and new rings within several of the gaps in Saturn's rings.

The team has also sighted what appears to be a hydrocarbon lake in the southern hemisphere of Titan in June 2005, [ [http://ciclops.org/view.php?id=1161 Land of Lakes?] ] and a group of similar (and larger) features in the northern hemisphere in February 2007. The possibility that these sea-sized features are either completely or partially filled with liquid hydrocarbons is significantly strengthened by overlapping Cassini radar data [ [http://ciclops.org/view.php?id=2631 Exploring the Wetlands of Titan] ] [ [http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2007/03/nasa_qa Meet Carolyn Porco, the Scientist Who Made Saturn a Rock Star] ]

Recently, she has turned her scientific investigations to the study of Enceladus and its now-famous jets. She and her team first suggested, and provided detailed scientific arguments, that these jets might be geysers erupting from reservoirs of near-surface liquid water under the south pole of the small moon. [ [http://ciclops.org/sci/reports.php C. C. Porco, et al. "Cassini Observes the Active South Pole of Enceladus", Science, vol. 311, no. 5766, 2006, pp. 1393-1401] ]

New Horizons

Dr Porco is a member of the imaging team for the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. The probe is scheduled for a Pluto flyby in 2015.

University Positions

Dr Porco served in the faculty of the University of Arizona from 1983 to 2001, achieving tenured professorship in 1991. She taught both graduates and undergraduates and was one of 5 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 currently a Senior Research Scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

NASA advisor

Porco has been an active participant in guiding the American planetary exploration program through membership on many important NASA advisory committees, including the Solar System Exploration Subcommittee, the Mars Observer Recovery Study Team, and the Solar System Road Map Development Team. In the mid-1990’s, she served as the chairperson for a small NASA advisory working group to study and develop future outer solar system missions and she served as the Vice Chairperson of the Steering Group for the 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 recently at renowned conferences such as Pop!Tech (2005, 2006) [ [http://www.poptech.org/popcasts/popcasts.aspx?lang=&viewcastid=2 Pop!Tech Pop!Casts archive] ] and TED (2007) [ [http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/carolyn_porco_flies_us_to_saturn.html Carolyn Porco Flies Us to Saturn] ] . She attended and was a speaker at the symposium on November 2006 [ [http://thesciencenetwork.org/BeyondBelief/speakers/ Beyond Belief 2006: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival] ] .

The Human Journey

Porco's 2007 TED talk was entitled "The Human Journey," and detailed two major areas of discovery made by the Cassini mission, namely the exploration of the Saturnian moons Titan and Enceladus. In her introductory remarks, Porco explained:

In describing the environment of Titan, with its molecular Nitrogen atmosphere suffused with organic compounds, Porco invited her audience to imagine the scene on the moon's surface:

Quote|"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 raining: and you might be standing on the shores of Lake Michigan brimming with paint thinner.

"That is the view that we had of the surface of Titan before we got there with Cassini. And I can tell you that what we have found on Titan, though it's not the same in detail, is every bit as fascinating as that story is, and for us, for Cassini people, it has been like a Jules Verne adventure come true."

After describing various features discovered on Titan by Cassini, and presenting the historic first photograph of Titan's surface by the Huygens lander, Porco went on to describe Enceladus and the jets of "fine icy particles" which erupt from the moon's southern pole:

Awards and Honors

In 1999, Porco was selected by The London Sunday Times as one of 18 scientific leaders of the 21st century [cite news |first= Steve |last= Farrer |title= The brains behind the 21st century |work= News Review |page= 6 |publisher= The Sunday Times |date= January 10, 1999] , and by Industrial Week as one of "50 Stars to Watch". [ [http://www.industryweek.com/CurrentArticles/asp/articles.asp?ArticleId=691 "Industrial Week", 1999 "50 R&D Stars To Watch"] ]

Her contributions to the exploration of the outer solar system were recognized with the naming of Asteroid (7231) Porco which 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" [ [http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=7231;orb=1 JPL Small-Body Database Browser] ] .

In 2008, Porco was awarded the Isaac Asimov Science Award by the American Humanist Association. [ [http://www.americanhumanist.org/press/CarolynPorco.php Humanists to Honor Lead Imaging Scientist on the Cassini Saturn Project] ] .

Television and film

Porco has been a regular CNN guest analyst and consultant on astronomy, has made many radio and television appearances explaining science to the lay audience, including appearances on the MacNeil/Lehrer "Newshour", CBS' "60 Minutes", Peter Jennings' "The Century", and TV documentaries on planetary exploration such as "Cosmic Journey: The Voyager Interstellar Mission and Message" on A&E, "The Planets" on the Discovery Channel and the BBC, "Horizon" on the BBC, and a Nova Cassini special on PBS.

Porco served as an adviser for the 1997 film "Contact", which 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 that she use Porco as a real-life model to guide her performance.Carolyn Porco: Captain's Log, July 2015] Porco is also an advisor on the film Star Trek (2009). [ [http://diamondskyproductions.com/news/2-11-2008.php Lead Planetary Scientist to Advise on New Star Trek Movie] ]

Interviews and articles

Porco has been the subject of numerous interviews in print media on subjects ranging from planetary exploration to the conflict between science and religion (e.g. Newsweek [ [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15653706/site/newsweek Losing Our Religion] ] [ [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14638243/site/newsweek The New Naysayers] ] and The New York TimesFact|date=February 2008).

She has been profiled many times in print, beginning in the Boston Globe (October 1989)Fact|date=February 2008, the New York Times (August 1999), [ [http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/081799sci-nasa-cassini-2.html Carolyn Porco: Cassini Scientist Yielded to the Seduction of Space] ] the Tucson Citizen (2001), [ [http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/projects/who_runs_tucson/stars_porco.html Carolyn Porco profile in the Tucson Citizen] ] in Newsday (June 2004)Fact|date=February 2008, for the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (2006) [Dr. Carolyn Porco: The Biggest, Baddest Team Leader] and in Astronomy Now (2006), [Carolyn Porco: the biggest, baddest team leader of them all] and also online on CNN.com (2005)Fact|date=February 2008, on Edge.org, [ [http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/porco.html Carolyn Porco profile on the Edge.org website] ] on Facts.com and on Space.com. [ [http://space.com/businesstechnology/technology/porco_boldly_050214.html Carolyn Porco: Keeping an Eye in Saturn] ]

Prior to Cassini’s launch, she was a strong and visible defendant of the usage of radioactive materials on the Cassini spacecraftFact|date=February 2008. She is a supporter of the re-direction of NASA’s human spaceflight program towards the Moon and Mars, and in an op-ed piece published in The New York Times, [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/opinion/20porco.html NASA Goes Deep] ] highlighted the benefits of the new direction for the robotic exploration of the solar system.

Popular science

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. [ [http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/biography/0,6121,105529,00.html Book Review: Carl Sagan: A Life] ] Her popular science articles have been published in The London Sunday Times, The Guardian, Astronomy, the Arizona Daily Star, Sky & Telescope and American Scientist. She continues to be active in the presentation of science to the public as the leader of the Cassini Imaging Team, where she is the creator/editor of the website where Cassini images are posted, and writes the site's homepage "Captain's Log" greeting to the public.

She is also the CEO of [http://diamondskyproductions.com 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.

Musical interests

Porco is famously fascinated by the 1960s and The Beatles and has, at times, incorporated references to The Beatles and their music into her presentations, writings, and press releases. The first color image released by Cassini to the public was an image of Jupiter, taken during Cassini’s approach to the giant planet and released on October 9 2000 to honor John Lennon’s 60^th birthday. [ [http://ciclops.org/view.php?id=110 Jupiter & Europa in True Color] ] In 2006, she produced and directed a brief 8-minute movie of 64 of Cassini’s most spectacular images, [ [http://ciclops.org/view.php?id=24 Sixty-Four Scenes from Saturn ... The Movie] ] put to the music of the Beatles, in honor of Paul McCartney’s 64^th birthday. And in 2007, she produced a poster showing sixty-four scenes from Saturn, which she sent to the former Beatle, Paul McCartney. [ [http://ciclops.org/view.php?id=2879 Sixty-Four Scenes from Saturn ... The Poster] ] [ [http://ciclops.org/view.php?id=2914 Sixty-Four Scenes from Saturn ... The Images] ]

References

External links

* [http://www.pangeaday.org/filmDetail.php?id=24 Pangea Day opening speech by Carolyn Porco]
* [http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/178 TED talk by Carolyn Porco on The Human Journey]
* [http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail767.html Podcast on the Cassini mission by Carolyn Porco]