Porco, Carolyn C. (1953-…), an American astronomer and planetary scientist, has become known for her contributions to the exploration of the solar system by spacecraft. In 1983, she became a member of the imaging team for the Voyager missions to the outer solar system. In 1990, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) selected her as imaging team leader for the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn. In 2001, she joined the imaging team for the New Horizons probe to Pluto.
During her time on the Voyager team, Porco worked to explain the newly discovered eccentric (irregular) rings in Saturn’s ring system. This work, along with her research on the rings of Uranus and Neptune, helped scientists understand how the small moons of these planets maintain the shapes of the rings. She also explained the behavior of the dark markings called spokes discovered in Saturn’s B ring.
On the Cassini-Huygens mission, Porco’s team produced high-resolution images of Saturn, its rings, and its satellites. The team tracked clouds in the atmospheres of Saturn and its giant moon Titan, surveyed the surface of Titan and Saturn’s other moons, and made the first sighting of the active geysers erupting from the moon Enceladus.
Porco was born on March 6, 1953, in New York City. She received a Bachelor of Science degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1976. In 1983, she received a Doctor of Science degree from the California Institute of Technology. From 1983 until 2001, she was a member of the faculty at the University of Arizona. In 2001, she joined the faculty of the University of Colorado as an adjunct professor. In 2003, she joined the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, as a senior researcher. There, she directs the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations (CICLOPS), the center of activities for the Cassini imaging experiment.
In 2008, the American Humanist Association awarded Porco the Isaac Asimov Science Award. In 2009, she won the Lennart Nilsson Award for extraordinary image makers in science. She has written or co-written about 100 papers published in scientific journals and many articles published in popular science magazines.
See also Cassini; Voyager; New Horizons.
