Carolyn Porco

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Carolyn Porco bigraphy, stories - Planetary scientist

Carolyn Porco : biography

06 March 1953 –

Carolyn C. Porco (born March 6, 1953) 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. She leads the imaging science team on the Cassini mission currently in orbit around Saturn. She is also an imaging scientist on the New Horizons]’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 more than 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 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. In 2013, Cassini data confirmed a 1993 prediction by Porco and Mark Marley that acoustic oscillations within the body of Saturn are responsible for creating particular features in the rings of Saturn.

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., Astronomy, February 2000.

A frequent public speaker, Porco has given two popular lectures at TED as well as the opening speech for Pangea Day, a May 2008 global broadcast coordinated from six cities around the world, in which she described the cosmic context for human existence. Porco has also won a number of awards and honors for her contributions to science and the public sphere; for instance, in 2009, New Statesman named her as one of ‘The 50 People Who Matter Today.’ In 2010 she was awarded the Carl Sagan Medal, presented by the American Astronomical Society for Excellence in the Communication of Science to the Public. And in 2012, she was named one the 25 most influential people in space by Time magazine.

Musical interests

Porco is 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 60th birthday. In 2006, she produced and directed a brief 8-minute movie of 64 of Cassini’s most spectacular images, put to the music of the Beatles, in honor of Paul McCartney’s 64th birthday. And in 2007, she produced a poster showing 64 scenes from Saturn.

Porco is also interested in dance and fascinated with Michael Jackson. In August 2010, she won a Michael Jackson costume/dance contest held in Boulder, Colorado.

Quotes of Porco’s were 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.

Education

Porco was born in New York City. She graduated in 1970 from Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx, in New York City. She earned a BS degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1974. She received her PhD in 1983 from the California Institute of Technology in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences. Supervised by dynamicist Peter Goldreich, she wrote her doctoral dissertation focused on Voyager discoveries in the rings of Saturn.

Career

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.