Carolyn Porco Quotes

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Carolyn Porco

Profession : Scientist

Birth : March 6, 1953

I was drawn to astronomy by a teenage existential quest. Around 13, I was deep into wondering about the meaning of life and what I was doing here. I turned to religion, but that did nothing for me. I got to wondering where was here. So, I began studying astronomy and became enthralled by what I learned.

Carolyn Porco

People gravitate to religion to feel a connection to the underlying meaning of everything. Well, as a scientist, you're always looking for the underlying meaning, and that, to me, is such a spiritual life, I wish people would open themselves up to that wonder.

Carolyn Porco

To my mind, most people go through life recoiling from its best parts. They miss the enrichment that just a basic knowledge of the physical world can bring to the most ordinary experiences.

Carolyn Porco

As a planetary system, Saturn holds the greatest promise for answering questions that have a far broader scientific reach than Saturn itself.

Carolyn Porco

Saturn is such an alluring photographic target.

Carolyn Porco

I know that I derive the same kind of spiritual fulfillment from what I do, being a planetary scientist, seeing our exploration of the solar system come to fruition. I get such a spiritual high from it that I don't even see the need for religion.

Carolyn Porco

It's like there's a pulsating, hidden world, governed by ancient laws and principles, underlying everything around us - from the movements of electrical charges to the motions of the planets - and most people are completely unaware of it. To me, that's a shame.

Carolyn Porco

For me, it was my first cosmic connection, on par with a first kiss. No other planet looks as unworldly or surreal as Saturn. When you see it floating in the eyepiece of your telescope, you feel as if you've uncovered mystery in the cosmos.

Carolyn Porco

My whole entry into astronomy started from a spiritual place.

Carolyn Porco

Let's teach our children from a very young age about the story of the universe and its incredible richness and beauty. It is already so much more glorious and awesome - and even comforting - than anything offered by any scripture or God concept I know.

Carolyn Porco

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.

Carolyn Porco

Titan is the one place in our solar system whose geographical and atmospheric diversity and complexity are rivaled only by the Earth's. It's very Earth-like, but it's also very different, which means we have a lot to learn as well as a prayer of understanding what we find.

Carolyn Porco

I did play the guitar and sing; I was in a band called The Estrogens: three females and one very brave guy.

Carolyn Porco

Motive may be inferred only when the stimuli in the agent's environment are open to view and the influences leading an agent to a particular action can be evaluated.

Carolyn Porco

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.

Carolyn Porco

Titan has no liquid water on its surface, and any liquid water beneath its surface is inaccessible to us, as far as we know. It has hydrocarbon lakes, but we don't know of any organisms that could live in those, not at the temperatures that we find on Titan. Any reference to possible life in lakes on the surface of Titan is pure speculation.

Carolyn Porco

Cassini was so profoundly, scientifically successful. It's amazing to me, even, what we were able to do right up until the end.

Carolyn Porco

Most of the solar system resides beyond the orbits of the asteroids. There is more to learn there about general planetary processes than on Mars.

Carolyn Porco

It would be impossible in a few words to describe all that we've found with Cassini. No mission has ever gone as deep for as long on a planetary system as rich as Saturn's.

Carolyn Porco

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?

Carolyn Porco