Carolyn
Porco was 13 years old when she experienced her first 'cosmic connection'. She was on a rooftop in the Bronx,
of all the unlikely places, peering through a friend's telescope when she
caught her first glimpse of Saturn. It
was a pivotal moment for Porco, now leader of the imaging team on the Cassini mission to the ringed world, as it was then where
she discovered her life's passion.
Some
astronomers fall in love with their craft by building their own telescopes, and
only after they view the stars do they begin to be enraptured by the vastness
of space. For Porco, it was the other
way around.
"I wasn't a
tinkerer, I was a thinker, a seeker," Porco said. "I got into astronomy through an interest in
religion. 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."
By the time
she was in high school she had developed a deep interest in astronomy. She saw
the first images of Mars from the Mariner mission in the early '60's and knew
that she wanted to explore planets. She
went to the State University of New York in Stony Brook to do her undergraduate
work in astronomy before going to California Institute of Technology, where she
earned her doctorate.
While at
Caltech, which runs NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Porco got her first real
hands on experience exploring other planets.
"While I
was there, Voyager flew by Saturn. I got
involved with a person who was a member of the imaging team and started working
on data from Saturn," said Porco in an interview with Space.com. "With all that
data coming in, the imaging team didn't have enough hands or scientists to work
on all of it."
Because of
the lack of hands, a gem that would help define her career fell into Porco's
lap. She was the first person to work on
data from Saturn's eccentric ringlets and the "spokes" in the B ring, two
projects she would do her dissertation on.
As she progressed with her work on ringlets and "spokes", she discovered
a connection between them and Saturn's magnetic field.
"I'll never
forget when I realized there was this connection - it was tremendous to know
something that no one else on the planet knew," said Porco, joking that she
felt a bit like Galileo. "It was a
"eureka" moment -- a time when you come to understand one of nature's secrets."
Because she
understood this particular secret so well, she continued to contribute to the
Voyager mission as the fly by images of Uranus, which has rings similar to
Saturn's, were being gathered in 1986.
As a member of the imaging team, she played a large role in planning the
imaging sequences of the Uranian rings.
By the time Voyager was passing Neptune
in 1989, Porco was leading a small band of scientists interested in Neptunian
rings on Voyager's imaging team.
Going back to Saturn
Just six
months after the Voyager mission ended, Porco applied for the team leader
position on the Cassini mission to Saturn.
On a day she will never forget, November 13, 1990, she was informed that
she had been appointed team leader, beating out many more senior applicants in
doing so. The appointment was the
beginning of 14 years of demanding work.
The Cassini
mission has many goals, including measuring Saturn's huge magnetosphere,
performing close up analysis of the rings, and studying the composition and
atmosphere of both Saturn and its largest moon, Titan. And, of course, to provide stunning images of
one of our solar systems most alluring planets.
The heavy
emphasis on imaging, both for artistic and scientific purposes, places a huge
responsibility on Porco and her team.
The first real images that Cassini sent back, of the Earths moon and the
Masursky asteroid, proved that the imaging equipment was working and working
well -- a great relief to Porco and her team.
"The first
real Cassini image that brought tears to my eyes was an image of Jupiter. I didn't expect it to look so detailed."
Spending 14
years working on the Cassini mission has been a demanding task. Much of the mission's success is due to the
sweat of the scientists working on the mission, who have been asked to sprint
for the duration of a marathon.
With plans
for Cassini to continue gathering data for nearly four more years, there is
still a great deal of work left to do. Cassini
is sending back scads of data and images each day for scientists to pore
over. As Porco says, it's not so much a
mission as a way of life. But it's a way
of life that she seems to enjoy.
"It's been
an adventure just getting out to Saturn," said Porco. "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."
Aside from
making the returned data and images artful, Porco feels responsible to provide
the public with an amazing experience similar to what she was going
through. "Ever since launch I have
wanted to give people a sense of adventure.
That they were riding along with us on the spacecraft."
Looking Back
Working
around-the-clock on Cassini doesn't allow Porco much time for reflection, but
as someone who has played distinctive roles in two of the most grandiose
explorations of space, she can draw interesting comparisons between the two
missions based on her experiences.
"Nothing
will ever be what the Voyager mission was," said Porco. "It was that mission that showed us what the
solar system was like. It was a
tremendous exploratory mission that was conducted over a decade. It was Homeric in nature. There would be episodes of tremendous
discovery, and then it was back into the boat, so to speak, and on to the next
port.
"Cassini is
different -- it's a mission of enormous scope and is being conducted in grand
style. It is much more sophisticated
than Voyager," continues Porco. "I can't
say it's got that flavor of romance, though.
Voyager was very romantic.
Cassini is spectacular."
One reason
Porco feels differently about the two missions is because of the role that she
has played in each. During Voyager, she
was still doing her graduate work and just starting to cut her teeth on
planetary explorations, but her role as team leader for the Cassini mission
takes on a completely different meaning for her.
"Being the
team leader on Cassini is the best job in the inner solar system. Voyager was a gift that was given to me to
participate in. My contributions on
Cassini are my gift to the world."
2005 - Year of the Moon - and Beyond
The
upcoming year will be an extremely busy one for Cassini and its earthbound
counterparts as the satellite will be making a total 13 flybys past five of
Saturn's moons. Eight of those flybys
will be past Titan in order to achieve the necessary gravitational assistance
to check out the other moons.
Between
April and September the inclination of Cassini's orbit will be increased,
allowing the camera to take pictures looking down onto Saturn's rings. The navigation for these flybys and
observations has been planned long in advance, but as more images are taken and
new objects are discovered, such as new moons, Porco's crew will need to
continuously develop new camera commands to take images of these intriguing
objects.
"We do
retargetable observations of such objects.
We find a new moon, determine its orbit and then use that information to
predict where the moon will be at a later time so that we can take a closer
look at it," explained Porco. "It's a
very deadline driven activity."
When work
is finally complete on the Cassini mission, Porco will shift her gaze to the
most outer planet in our solar system, Pluto, and beyond. She is an imaging scientist on the New
Horizons mission, which will provide us with the first look at Pluto and other
bodies in the Kuiper Belt, and is on schedule to reach Pluto in 10 years.
The goal of
the mission, aside from getting great pictures of objects never seen up close
before, will be to observe Pluto's tenuous atmosphere and try to understand is
nature. Observations of objects in the
Kuiper Belt, which are believed to be some of the oldest objects in our solar
system, could provide insight as to how the planets formed. "In exploring Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, we
will be going as far back in time as we can in this solar system," said Porco.
The New
Horizons mission will hold special meaning to Porco, who will be able to tick
off another notch on her planetary belt.
"[It's] a tremendous feeling of closure, as a member of Voyager, to have
visited Pluto and all the bodies in our solar system," said Porco.
Leaving Her Mark
In 1998,
Porco's decades of work were recognized as she officially became a part of the
realm she studies. As if out of an
astronomer's dream, Asteroid (7231) Porco was "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."
But what
Porco is really proud of, and what she hopes she will be remembered for, is the
work she has done to help bring the planets in our outer solar system a little
closer to Earth. It is her life's work,
and aside from building her own legacy, she has treasured the experience.
"Being
among the first people to show humankind what our solar system was all about
was a tremendous privilege. It will be
remembered forever. The gratification
that one feels when participating in these types of missions is enormous."
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