Carolyn Porco Quotes

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.

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?

It is wonderful to contemplate how the planetary forces balance each other so perfectly that universal equilibrium is maintained despite the disturbances of the 1,500 millions which inhabit the Earth alone, not to speak of other spheres.

The universe has told us the most common types of planets are small planets, and our study shows these are exactly the ones that are most likely to be orbiting Alpha Centauri A and B.

There are amateurs who have seen that one of Uranus' poles is brighter than the other, or who have seen cloud formations on the planet. For all we know, interesting things are happening there all the time.

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.

Titan is Saturn's largest moon, and, until Cassini had arrived, there was the largest single expanse of unexplored terrain that we had remaining in our solar system.

Spokes are one of those Saturn-system phenomena that we are keenly interested in understanding.

I have been battering away at Saturn, returning to the charge every now and then. I have effected several breaches in the solid ring, and now I am splash into the fluid one, amid a clash of symbols truly astounding. When I reappear it will be in the dusky ring, which is something like the state of the air supposing the siege of Sebastopol conducted from a forest of guns 100 miles one way, and 30,000 miles the other, and the shot never to stop, but go spinning away round a circle, radius 170,000 miles.

I'd probably go to see Saturn first-thing and see as close to those rings as I can get and see if I can fly by one of them and try and put one of my hands through them.

Neptune controls Pluto's orbit. Neptune is the bully of that neighborhood.

This world has many rings, like Saturn, and we live now on the outmost of them all. None can say deliberately that he inhabits thesame sphere, or is contemporary, with the flower which his hands have plucked, and though his feet may seem to crush it, inconceivable spaces and ages separate them, and perchance there is no danger that he will hurt it.

Russia can offer state-of-the-art technology, .. For example, we can help other countries launch space devices such as satellites.

Saturn is the most photogenic planet in the solar system.

The first man-made satellite to orbit the earth was named Sputnik. The first living creature in space was Laika. The first rocket to the Moon carried a red flag. The first photograph of the far side of the Moon was made with a Soviet camera. If a man orbits the earth this year his name will be Ivan.

The tragic element in poetry is like Saturn in alchemy, — the Malevolent, the Destroyer of Nature ; but without it no true Aurum Potabile, or Elixir of Life, can be made.

This excerpt is presented as reproduced by Copernicus in the preface to De Revolutionibus: "Some think that the earth remains at rest. But Philolaus the Pythagorean believes that, like the sun and moon, it revolves around the fire in an oblique circle. Heraclides of Pontus and Ecphantus the Pythagorean make the earth move, not in a progressive motion, but like a wheel in rotation from west to east around its own center."

Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.

I've met a lot of the astronauts, which was such an incredible experience. They're all very macho guys, like fighter pilots, but then there's a mysticism about them.

Ever since I saw the moon landing as a young teenager, I was determined I would go into space one day.

The enormous energy of the twentieth century, enough to drive the planet into a new orbit around a happier star, was being expended to maintain this immense motionless pause.

The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun.

One orbit, with a radius of 42,000 kilometers, has a period of exactly 24 hours. A body in such an orbit, if its plane coincided with that of the Earth's equator, would revolve with the Earth and would thus be stationary above the same spot on the planet. It would remain fixed in the sky of a whole hemisphere ... [to] provide coverage to half the globe, and for a world service three would be required, though more could be readily utilized. (1945) [Predidicting geosynchronous communication satellites]

The movement of comets is part of the ordinary works of nature which, without regard to the happiness or misery of mankind, are transported from one part of the heavens to another by virtue of the general laws of motion.

We've sent a man to the moon and that's 29,000 miles away. The center of the Earth is only 4,000 miles away. You could drive that in a week but for some reason nobody's ever done it.