farric@peoplepc.com      

2009-11-28 23:05:12

Another amazing capture of Nature's electromagnetic dance. Thank you, Carolyn Porco and your team. You keep topping your previous achievements. Robert Riccardi, M.D.

IVAN3MAN      

2009-09-24 01:57:19

Dr. Carolyn Porco, will you please refrain from using the terms "believed" and "belief" in a scientific context. Only ancient peoples and bloody freaking creationists have 'beliefs'! Real scientists do not 'believe' or have 'beliefs'; instead, they hypothesize or have hypotheses; they conjecture, surmise, speculate, presume, or infer. Finally, when the facts are known, it then becomes an established theory. The English language has no shortage of suitable words to use in a scientific context, so there's no bloody excuse for using 'weak' words. Thank you. P.S. The Bad Astronomer, Dr. Phil Plait, will confirm that I am a nitpicker!

NeKto      

2008-11-26 09:33:05

i just read the Scientific American article. i can enthusiasticly recomend it. a very good presentation of what is known and is not known about the enigmatic little moon. and a good presentation on what the energy source might be and why some hypothesis have been eliminated. sometimes the best moments in science are when a great big question mark is uncovered. i think this is one of those moments. Great article Carolyn. thank you. (there is even a small photo of Carolyn Porco with a blue eyed friend.)

vista      

2008-10-29 18:18:40

I really like this image of Saturn and its edge on rings. I am also really looking fordward to the next flyby of Enceladus, Saturn moon on Oct 31st 2008. I want to see the [trenches or tiger stripes] again to see if any thing has changed since the last flyby. Go Cassini. I will expect another great success. Carolyn Porco will be as excited as i am to see the first images on Oct 31st, coming back to Earth.

NeKto      

2008-08-13 12:41:14

Understatement; "Damn, we do good work!" Carolyn Porco 12 August 2008

Jay55      

2008-08-07 02:31:56

Saturn has always been my favourite planet since I was 11yrs old when I first looked at it through a telscope. You never forget that. I couldn't sleep for hours that night after that. The beauty of Saturn lends itself to beautiful music, but what is beautiful music is often a matter of opinion. I agree with Kevin just play your own and what you think is beautiful. If Aliens landed in front of me one day and offered me a ride somewhere in their spaceship I would have to say "Take me to Saturn, Titan and Enceladus please". Do you think thats asking too much? I might be pushing it too if could ask if I could bring Carolyn Porco with me because i have a feeling she would appreciate it. Jason (Sydney)

cmckay      

2008-03-30 17:23:57

Hello, new to this site at the invitation of Carolyn Porco. Looking at the interesting discussion and one area that I can comment on is the methane. While it is true that methane can form as a breakdown product of organics at high temperature it can also be formed biologically. It is interesting that the microbial ecosystem on Earth that is my favorite candidate for an ecosystem on either Europa or Enceladus is based on methanogens. The usual way to tell biogenic from abiogenic methane is with isotopes - not an option on Cassini. However the ratio of ethane to methane is another way. Biogenic production of methane tends to be pretty pure methane while thermogenic production of methane make 1% or more ethane as well.

cosmicguy      

2007-08-26 12:43:42

I just interviewed Carolyn Porco Aug 16th at Spacefest 2007. She has a wealth of information about her team and their explorations of Saturn and her Moons! She also gave a fantastic talk on Cassini and Saturn, and a great slide show as well! It was a pleasure meeting her and chatting with her throughout the weekend!

20tauri      

2009-11-30 13:58:04

Just picked up the Star Trek BluRay this past weekend. If you haven't already gotten a hold of one, you should definitely do so! On top of the film, there are tons of extras. Most relevant to this forum, our Captain appears on-screen with insightful commentary on the dawn of the space age and the importance of films like Star Trek in capturing our collective imagination. You can find Carolyn in the section on Gene Roddenberry's vision (note: the word on the street is that this only appears in the BluRay release, not the DVDs). Incidentally, most of you know this already, but in case you missed it: Earlier this fall a couple of us put together a petition to get Carolyn a cameo in the Star Trek sequel that's in pre-production right now. Please sign it if you haven't already! It's at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/dr- style="color:#F9E722;">carolyn-porco-deserves-a-star-trek-cameo

Red_dragon      

2009-08-25 13:33:46

I have to agree with PeterDarmady, and of course as expected, I'm glad to see there're so many people thinking as me or him. People that make US that so-loved country despite someone as GWB, people thanks to which there's something as NASA. And as him, my heroes were (and are) people as Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan (I remembered his death made me to cry and to know of that JUST the day I borrowed from the library "A Pale Blue Dot"), and of course Carolyn Porco and many others as them.