Carolyn Porco

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Carolyn Porco, 2016

Carolyn C. Porco (born March 6, 1953 in New York City ) is an American planetary researcher , best known for her work in the field of exploration of the outer solar system - starting with her work as part of the Voyager missions in the 1980s , more precisely: Voyager 2 , in which Jupiter , Saturn , Uranus and Neptune were the focus of interest. Later, she led a "principal investigator" the imaging science team ( English " Imaging Science Team " ) of the Cassini-Huygens mission, in which the probe on September 15, 2017. left the orbit to burn up in the upper atmosphere of Saturn. She is also an expert in the field of planetary rings and that of Saturn's moon Enceladus . In addition, she is also the managing director of the company "Diamond Sky Productions". The company is committed to the scientific and artistic use of planetary images and computer graphics for the presentation of science to the public.

Career

Carolyn Porco was born on March 6, 1953 in New York City to an Italian immigrant. Her father worked as a delivery driver for bread, her mother took care of the household and the five children - in addition to Porco as the only daughter, four sons. Porco sees this environment as a basis for her later success, as it taught her to discuss and fight with men. At the age of 13, she saw Saturn for the first time from a neighbour's telescope on the roof. At the age of 13 she also started her first part-time job - sorting shelves in a library. In 1970 she graduated from Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx , where Sonia Sotomayor received her first education. Her interest in astronomy grew out of an interest in religion, Eastern philosophy, and existentialism.

In 1974 she received her Bachelor of Science degree in physics and astronomy from the State University of New York at Stony Brook . Your Ph.D. received it in 1983 at the California Institute of Technology in the Department of Geology and Planetary Research . In her dissertation , which she completed in 1983, she dealt, supervised by astrophysicist Peter Goldreich , with the discoveries made by the Voyager probe regarding the rings of Saturn .

Career

In 1984 she joined the University of Arizona , where she did research for 17 years. In 2001 she moved to Boulder to join the Southwest Research Institute, a nonprofit research facility. She also became an associate professor at the University of Colorado .

Parallel to her start at the University of Arizona, she also became a member of the Voyager Missions team in 1984. In 1990 she became a team leader at the Cassini mission and outpaced a number of colleagues with significantly more experience in the application round.

Porco's team was responsible for the first sighting of a hydrocarbon lake and a lake area in the southern polar region of Titan in June 2005. A group of similar - and larger - features were sighted in the northern polar region in February 2007. The possibility that these sea-sized units are either completely or partially filled with liquid hydrocarbons was significantly increased by later observations with other Cassini instruments.

In the second half of 2015, she accepted an appointment as Visiting Scholar at the University of California at Berkeley .

She has published well over 100 scientific articles on various topics. The range covers u. a. the spectroscopy of Uranus and Neptune, the astrophotometry of planetary rings , computer simulations of planetary rings , the thermal balance of the polar caps of the ice moon Triton (also called Neptune I ), the heat flow in the planetary interior of Jupiter as well as a series of results on the atmosphere, satellites and Saturn's rings Cassini imaging experiment. In 2013 , Cassini data published by Hedman and Nicholson of Cornell University confirmed a prediction made twenty years earlier by Porco and Mark Marley in 1993 that acoustic vibrations in the body of Saturn are responsible for generating certain features in Saturn's rings are.

She is or was a member of various NASA advisory committees.

reception

As a speaker

Porco is often invited as a speaker due to her work, which includes key notes such as the “2018 Winter Enrichment Program” at King Abdullah University in Saudi Arabia or as part of lecture series such as 2017 at the University of Nevada, Reno also includes two lectures in the context of the innovation conference TED , of which your 2007 contribution was accessed over 2.7 million times, according to the counter on the website, and the 2009 contribution almost 1 million times (as of the end of 2018). She also gave the opening speech as part of Pangea Day , a worldwide broadcast coordinated from six cities around the world in May 2008, in which she described the cosmic context of human existence.

In the media

Because of its work and approach to science communication, Porco has achieved widespread response in the public media, especially in Anglo-Saxon publications. The spectrum she covers in interviews extends from her work in the narrower sense, i. H. the exploration of planets, up to the conflict between science and religion, as it u. a. Documented by Newsweek and Wired . She also appears in documentaries such as the documentary "The Farthest: Voyager in Space" of the non-commercial TV chain PBS .

As part of the Cassini mission, Porco had to play to its strengths in communication twice: At the very beginning, when it came to avoiding the budget cuts that would have meant the end of the project, and again later, when it was in public gave a critical response due to the radioactive drive used. Because of the radionuclide batteries , which significantly contain plutonium-238 , a protest group wanted to prevent the Cassini launch. She considered the dangers of a false start or an unplanned re-entry into the earth's atmosphere to be irresponsible, since Cassini contained enough plutonium-238 to kill up to 1.2 billion people and the premature death of tens of thousands to millions of people if distributed evenly be sure. Solar cells and long-life fuel cells were recommended as alternatives . Porco sought the public and was able to allay the concerns.

Portraits of Carolyn Porco have been published in a wide variety of media, including 1989 in the Boston Globe as the first medium with significant reach, twice in the New York Times (August 1999 and September 2009), in the Tucson Citizen (2001), CNN.com (2005) , Discover (2007), Time (2017) and Edge. org. From the German media her u. a. Dedicated a portrait by Deutschlandfunk on the occasion of her 65th birthday.

In an opinion piece for the New York Times in 2007, she appeared to be a proponent of a plan for the human colonization of space, especially on the moon and Mars, which the United States had announced in the 1960s, but which was then not implemented. A good ten years later, she specified her stance to the effect that the perspectives on Enceladus (also Saturn II ) are better than on the icy moon Europa (also Jupiter II ) and that research should be prioritized accordingly. When the Russian-born billionaire Yuri Milner expressed his willingness to fund a NASA Enceladus mission in the fall of 2018 , it sparked widespread media coverage from South America to Europe.

As a consultant

Due to her combination of media presence and professional competence, Carolyn Porco has been hired as a consultant for Hollywood films on various occasions. At her suggestion, Contact's script with Jodie Foster as a scientist looking for extraterrestrial life was changed so that affairs between doctoral students and doctoral fathers would be rather unusual.

At the invitation of director JJ Abrams , Porco was also a consultant for Star Trek , the eleventh film in the Star Trek series released in 2009, which is also the reboot . At their suggestion, the scene goes back in which the spaceship Enterprise comes out of the warp drive, plunges into the atmosphere of Titan and then rises like a submarine from the haze, with the rings of Saturn in the background. A petition was then started so that she would have a cameo appearance in a subsequent film.

Before that, she was, for example, a consultant for the TV special "Cosmic Journey" on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Voyager mission.

Awards

Porco has also received a number of awards and honors for their contributions to science and science communication.

It appeared in 1999 - among other things. with chemists A. Paul Alivisatos and Ahmed Zewail , cell biologist Hugh Pelham , mathematician Richard Borcherds or physicist Lyman Page - on a list in the British newspaper The Sunday Times with 18 scientists who looked at human life over the next 100 years should revolutionize. Porco was the only woman on this list.

In 2004, Industry Week called her one of 50 R&D stars to watch, along with personalities as diverse as Jaron Lanier , James N. Gray , Rita R. Colwell , Shirley Ann Jackson and Robert Fraley ( English 50 R&D Stars To Watch ).

In 2008 she was awarded the Science Prize named after Isaac Asimov by the American Association of Humanists (AHA) .

In 2009, Wired magazine counted her among the 15 people to advise the US President. In the same year Porco was awarded the “Science Writer Fellowship for 2010” by the renowned Huntington's Disease Library , and together with the Iranian photographer Babak Amin Tafreshi , she received the Lennart Nilsson Award, established in 1998 in honor of the photographer Lennart Nilsson . Also in 2009 she was ranked 37th among the “50 People Who Matter Today” by the British weekly New Statesman , and in 2010 she received the Carl Sagan medal from the American Astronomical Society for her achievements in science communication .

From the academic environment, she was awarded an honorary doctorate in 2009 by her alma mater , Stony Brook University . Two years later, the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) received the "Distinguished Alumni Award". The highest honor, which is regularly awarded by the institute, honors outstanding alumni from the fields of science, technology, business and art.

In 2012, she was named one of the 25 most influential people in space by the renowned US news magazine Time .

The asteroid (7231) Porco was named after her.

Trivia

The Cassini team on Abbey Road

From official press releases as well as presentations or texts, a fundamental proximity to pop culture and especially to the Beatles phenomenon can be read. For example, the first color image Cassini published to the public was an image of Jupiter, taken during Cassini's approach to the planet and published on October 9, 2000. The date of the report was followed by a birthday greeting to John Lennon ( English " Happy 60th Birthday, John " ) in brackets on the occasion of his 60th birthday. Six years later, she produced an 8-minute film with 64 of Cassini's most spectacular images in honor of Paul McCartney's 64th birthday. Originally, the video was backed with excerpts from 24 Beatles songs, but these were removed for legal reasons. Based on the images for the video, a poster with 64 scenes of Saturn followed in April 2007. She and some colleagues have also recreated the cover of the Beatles album Abbey Road , in which the team crossed the zebra crossing over Abbey Road in London.

According to her private, albeit partly public Facebook page, Porco is also generally interested in dance, especially for Michael Jackson . In August 2010 she won a costume / dance competition in Boulder , Colorado , on the occasion of the pop icon's birthday. In addition, she has meanwhile been musically active herself, for example in the groups "Titan Equatorial Band" and "Estrogens"

Quotes edited with Auto Tune by Porco were used in four of the 17 videos of the “Symphony of Science” project : “The Poetry of Reality (A Hymn for Science)”, “A Wave of Reason”, “Children of Africa (The story from us) ”and“ On to the edge! ”.

The Day the Earth Smiled campaign goes back to Porco . A mosaic of images was published showing the darkening of the sun by Saturn and the public was invited to meet friends, go outside and think about their own place in the universe.

She was also responsible for the epitaph and proposal to honor the renowned planetary geologist Eugene Shoemaker by sending a few grams of his remains to the moon from the Lunar Prospector spacecraft in 1998 . The container used was a capsule the size of a lipstick, in which a verse from William Shakespeare's " Romeo and Juliet " was engraved. In July 1999, after a year and a half of travel and 30 years after the first man on the moon, the ferry arrived. The action aroused criticism from Navajo Indians because the moon was being desecrated. Porco countered that in the United States faith and science are separate areas.

Web links

Commons : Carolyn Porco  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Dirk Lorenzen: Carolyn Porco is 65 - the Saturn photographer. In: deutschlandfunk.de. March 6, 2018, accessed November 11, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e Dennis Overbye: An Odyssey From the Bronx to Saturn's Rings. In: nytimes.com. September 21, 2009. Retrieved November 11, 2018 .
  3. ^ The Team - Mission - Solar System Exploration: NASA Science. In: solarsystem.nasa.gov. Retrieved November 11, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) - Cassini Orbiter - Solar System Exploration: NASA Science. In: solarsystem.nasa.gov. July 19, 2013, accessed November 11, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Carolyn Porco: Saturn: Farewell to Cassini. In: Spektrum.de. September 14, 2017. Retrieved November 12, 2018 .
  6. ^ SSI - Carolyn Porco. In: spacescience.org. July 19, 2013, accessed November 12, 2018 .
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  11. ↑ a b c d e Carolyn Porco. In: edge.org. Retrieved November 12, 2018 .
  12. ↑ a b Mitch Tobin: Cassini scientist leaving UA. (No longer available online.) In: tucsoncitizen.com. January 20, 2001, archived from the original on October 10, 2014 ; accessed on November 12, 2018 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / tucsoncitizen.com
  13. ↑ Land of Lakes? (NASA Cassini Saturn Mission Images). In: ciclops.org. June 28, 2005, accessed November 13, 2018 .
  14. ^ Exploring the Wetlands of Titan (NASA Cassini Saturn Mission Images). In: ciclops.org. February 25, 2007, accessed November 13, 2018 .
  15. ↑ a b Patrick Di Justo: Meet Carolyn Porco, the Scientist Who Made Saturn a Rock Star. In: wired.com. March 28, 2007, accessed November 12, 2018 .
  16. ^ Carolyn Porco: My Week - A Week in the Life of Carolyn Porco. In: wsj.com. February 10, 2016, accessed November 12, 2018 .
  17. ^ Cassini Imaging Team Science Results: Science Papers & Abstracts. In: ciclops.org. Retrieved November 11, 2018 .
  18. ↑ MM Hedman, PD Nicholson: Kronoseismology: Using density waves in Saturn's C ring to probe the planet's interior . In: Astronomical Journal . tape 146 , no. July 12 , 2013, doi : 10.1088 / 0004-6256 / 146/1/12 , bibcode : 2013AJ .... 146 ... 12H ( iop.org [PDF; 2,4 MB ; accessed on November 11, 2018]).
  19. ↑ Mark S. Marley; Carolyn C. Porco: Planetary acoustic mode seismology - Saturn's rings . In: Icarus . No. 106 , December 1993, doi : 10.1006 / icar.1993.1189 , bibcode : 1993Icar..106..508M .
  20. ↑ a b Vivian Pospisil: Emerging Technologies - 50 R&D Stars To Watch. In: industryweek.com. December 21, 2004, accessed November 12, 2018 (Spanish).
  21. ↑ Meres J. Weche: The day the Earth smiled. In: kaust.edu.sa. January 30, 2018, accessed November 11, 2018 .
  22. ↑ Michael Olinger: Planetary scientist and Saturn expert Carolyn Porco will speak at University of Nevada, Reno. In: unr.edu. February 24, 2017, accessed November 12, 2018 .
  23. ↑ Carolyn Porco: This is Saturn. In: ted.com. July 19, 2013, accessed November 11, 2018 .
  24. ^ Carolyn Porco: Could a Saturn moon harbor life? In: ted.com. Retrieved November 11, 2018 .
  25. ↑ Pangea Day Intro on YouTube , May 10, 2008, accessed on November 11, 2018.
  26. ↑ Tim Kasser: Beyond Belief: Carolyn Porco On Science & Religion, Part 1. In: thedailyhatch.org. April 6, 2015, accessed November 12, 2018 .
  27. ↑ Jerry Adler: The New Naysayers ( Memento August 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). In: thedailybeast.com . September 10, 2006 (English).
  28. ↑ Jerry Adler: Losing Our Religion ( Memento January 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). In: thedailybeast.com . November 9, 2006 (English).
  29. ↑ a b Lily Rothman: Meet the Woman Behind Some of NASA's Most Famous Images. In: time.com. August 17, 2017, accessed November 12, 2018 .
  30. ↑ The Farthest. In: pbs.org. Retrieved November 12, 2018 .
  31. ↑ STOP CASSINI: The Plutonium Probe. In: animatedsoftware.com. Retrieved November 12, 2018 .
  32. ↑ Top 10 Reasons Why The Cassini Mission With Its 72.3 Pounds Of Deadly Plutonium Must Be Postponed. In: lovearth.org. Retrieved November 12, 2018 .
  33. ↑ Maia Weinstock: Planetary Paparazzo: Carolyn Porco . In: Discover - Unseen Universe (Winter 2007) . S. 60–64 ( maiaw.com [PDF; 2.5 MB ; accessed on November 12, 2018]).
  34. ↑ Carolyn Porco: NASA Goes Deep. In: nytimes.com. February 20, 2007, accessed November 12, 2018 .
  35. ↑ Eric Berger: Senior scientist argues that we should bypass Europa for Enceladus ( Memento of July 5, 2018 in the Internet Archive ). In: arstechnica.com . July 5, 2018 (language).
  36. ↑ Patrícia Gnipper: NASA e bilionário Yuri Milner trabalham juntos para buscar vida em Encélado. In: canaltech.com.br. November 8, 2018. Retrieved November 12, 2018 (Portuguese).
  37. ^ Ciaran McGrath: Billionaire teams up with NASA for mission to find life on Enceladus. In: express.co.uk. November 9, 2018, accessed November 12, 2018 .
  38. ↑ a b Anthony Pascale: Exclusive Interview With Carolyn Porco - Star Trek's New Science Advisor. In: trekmovie.com. February 11, 2008, accessed November 12, 2018 .
  39. ^ David A. Kirby: Lab Coats in Hollywood: Science, Scientists, and Cinema . The MIT PRess, Cambridge 2010, ISBN 978-0-262-01478-6 , pp. 11 ( full text / preview in Google book search).
  40. ^ Jason C. Chavis: Facts About Carolyn Porco - Leader of the Cassini Space Probe's Imaging Team. In: brighthub.com. July 22, 2010, accessed November 13, 2018 .
  41. ↑ Steve Farrer: The brains behind the 21st century , In: Sunday Times, January 10, 1999, p. 6, cit. according to MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology: Archive and Alumni> Newspaper Articles> Newspaper Search Results> Record 920 - 944 of 1212 , Retrieved November 12, 2018.
  42. ^ Roy Speckhardt: Humanists to Honor Lead Imaging Scientist on the Cassini Saturn Project ( Memento of May 14, 2008 in the Internet Archive ). In: americanhumanist.org . January 17, 2008 (English).
  43. ^ Carolyn Porco Awarded Huntington Science Writer Fellowship ( Memento February 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). In: diamondskyproductions.com . September 15, 2009 (English).
  44. ^ Lennart Nilsson Award: 2009 Winners ( memento from September 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive ). In: lennartnilssonaward.se (English).
  45. ↑ The 50 people who matter today: 31-40. In: newstatesman.com. September 24, 2009, accessed November 11, 2018 .
  46. ^ Cassini Imaging Leader Honored With American Astronomical Society Carl Sagan Award (Cassini Special News). In: ciclops.org. May 28, 2010, accessed November 11, 2018 .
  47. ^ Cassini Imaging Leader Awarded Honorary Degree from Stony Brook University ( Memento July 10, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). In: diamondskyproductions.com . May 21, 2009 (English).
  48. ↑ Kathy Svitil: KCaltech Names Five Distinguished Alumni ( Memento from January 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). In: media.caltech.edu . March 22, 2011 (English).
  49. ↑ Shirin Samimi-Moore: TIME Magazine reveals the 25 Most Influential People in Space - among them, 5 TED veterans. In: blog.ted.com. December 3, 2012, accessed November 11, 2018 .
  50. ↑ Bjorn Carey: Carolyn Porco: Keeping an Eye in Saturn. In: space.com. February 14, 2005, accessed November 11, 2018 .
  51. ^ Jupiter & Europe in True Color (NASA Cassini Jupiter Images). In: ciclops.org. October 9, 2000, accessed November 11, 2018 .
  52. ^ Sixty-Four Scenes From Saturn (NASA Cassini Saturn Mission Images). In: ciclops.org. December 28, 2006, accessed November 11, 2018 .
  53. ^ Sixty-Four Scenes from Saturn… The Poster (NASA Cassini Saturn Mission Images). In: ciclops.org. April 25, 2007. Retrieved November 11, 2018 .
  54. ^ Carolyn Porco: MJ Dance Party. In: facebook .com. October 9, 2000, accessed November 11, 2018 .
  55. ↑ By Chris Higgins: Symphony of Science: "Children of Africa". In: mentalfloss.com. July 7, 2011, accessed November 11, 2018 .
  56. ^ Emil Karlsson: Symphony of Science: Combining the Awe and Wonder of Science with Music. In: debunkingdenialism.com. November 15, 2011, accessed November 11, 2018 .
  57. ↑ Jonathan Jones: People of Earth, say cheese! NASA to take everyone's picture from space. In: theguardian.com. June 19, 2013, accessed November 11, 2018 .
  58. ↑ James Vincent: Nasa's spectacular image of Saturn shows 'the day the Earth smiled'. In: independent.co.uk. November 13, 2013, accessed November 11, 2018 .
  59. ↑ Carolyn C. Porco: Destination Moon . In: Astronomy . February 2000, ISSN  0091-6358 , p. 52–55 ( astronomy.com [PDF; 7.4 MB ; accessed on November 11, 2018]).
  60. ↑ Carolyn C. Porco: The Eugene M. Shoemaker Tribute. In: ciclops.org. April 13, 2006, accessed November 11, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Porco, Carolyn
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Porco, Carolyn C.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American planetologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 6, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City