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The astronomer who took us to Saturn
Carolyn Porco is physicist and astronomer,
born in 1953 in the United States.
Daughter of Italian working class parents, she
graduated in physics and astronomy and has
dedicated her life to studying the mysteries of
space.
Her interest in astronomy comes from adolescence, a period in which she began to
consider questions such as what are we
doing here and what is out there. Her reflections made her fall in love with planets and
galaxies.
After graduating she worked as an official member of the Voyager imaging team, one of
only seven women in a team of 178 scientists,
analysing data coming from the Voyager II as it
passed Uranus and Neptune.
In 1990 she was appointed head of the imaging
team for the Cassini - Huygens mission to
Saturn, beating applicants with more experience. Carolyn helped design the most complex
camera system ever sent into space, with
lenses capable of taking pictures in black-and-white, color, infrared and ultraviolet light. With
the Cassini mission scientists hope to obtain
new data that may reveal how the solar system
was formed, or how
life on earth began. When the mission is complete, Carolyn will focus her energies on Pluto,
in the mission New Horizons.
Carolyn worked as a consultant for the film
producers of Contact, a film starring Jodie
Foster, in which she played a scientist interested in extraterrestrial life.
Carolyn is a very charismatic person, with a
special gift to convey her enjoyment for astronomy to the general public. For all her achievements in the field of planetary exploration she
was awarded the name of a new asteroid,
“Asteroid 7231 Porco”. She has also received
the Lennart Nilsson Award and the Isaac
Asimov Award.