smiling for cassini

Remember when we all smiled and waved at Saturn back in July, while the Cassini spacecraft snapped our photo? Well, the full mosaic from that magical day has finally been processed by Cassini's imaging team, and boy, is it a stunner. I'm not at all embarrassed to admit that it brought a tear to my eye the moment I saw it in full size...

Like a lens that might be utilized to view either the incredibly small or the incredibly distant, this mosaic compels us both to look inward, at how we might improve ourselves and the health of our only home, and to keep dreaming, about what else awaits us so long as we continue on in our quest to explore the solar system and beyond. (Indeed, if ever an image were appropriate to use as a call to action for those deciding the budgetary fates of our national space program, this one would be it.)

The timing of today's release coincides with the ceremonial hand-off of the late Carl Sagan's papers to the Library of Congress, where they have recently been archived for future generations to examine. We can all be sure that Sagan would have been quite pleased with this most magnificent interplanetary portrait... It is, of course, not only a thing of beauty, perfectly planned to take advantage of a breathtaking alignment of the sun, Saturn, and Earth. The image also reminds us just how tiny we are in the grand scheme of the cosmos—and how important it is to connect regularly with our fellow human beings so that we may reflect on our shared place in the universe.

I'm proud to have played a minor role in the planning of the #DayEarthSmiled and will remember these past months, and those 15 peaceful minutes in July, for many moons to come. For further insight, I highly recommend the latest Captain's Log from Cassini's imaging leader, Carolyn Porco, which beautifully summarizes her intent for the project and describes the many hidden treats you'll find if you take a closer look at the final mosaic.

Even if you missed the big event this past summer, take heart in knowing that your essence was captured in time and in space in this spectacular image in the year 2013. ∞

carolyn in wonderland: a little video about big things

It's early March, 2007, and planetary scientist Carolyn Porco has just opened the TED conference—a high-profile gathering of the world's brightest thinkers, movers, and shakers—with a bang. Her stirring presentation on the exploits of Cassini-Huygens, a space mission that's been investigating Saturn and its cornucopia of moons since July of 2004, is so inspiring that it goes on to become one of the top-voted talks on all of TED.com. It is, as they say, fantabulous.

Zoom ahead two and a half years to the waning days of 2009. I'm sitting at my desk, furiously scanning Google for a decent photograph of computer pioneer Ada Lovelace for a short piece I'm writing about her life. Before long, I stumble upon an image that makes me smile from ear-to-ear; it's a portrait of a small LEGO person with garments and hair just as Lady Lovelace would have worn them back in 1850. Almost immediately, my synapses start firing. How cool would it be to make minifigs (as these characters are known in the Legophile vernacular) of current well-known scientists and science popularizers? My first thought is to do one of Carolyn, whom I've been getting to know over the previous months. But I envision mini plastic versions of a number of other scientists and personalities as well . . . and thus, an idea is hatched.

Carolyn's minifig, the prototype for what will become an ever-growing collection of "LEGO scitweeps," is finished a few weeks later. But my creative juices are just getting started, and I find myself longing for a greater challenge: a stop-motion movie. I've never done one of these before and wouldn't even know where to begin. Yet it soon becomes my mission to recreate, in as much detail as possible, Carolyn's 2007 TED talk.

Many hours, quite a few moons (including one total eclipse!), and somewhere around 2,500 photographs later, my project is finally complete. The more vigilant among you might notice a few minor goofs (ahemupsidedownshorelineahem). But otherwise, I’m proud to say that this stop-action replica holds pretty true to the original, even down to the faces in the audience! So if you're as excited as I am about planetary exploration, I hope you'll set aside 18 minutes of your day and allow Carolyn's yellow Doppelgänger to, as she so eloquently enchants, take you on a journey . . . And why not check out these behind-the-scenes pics, while you're at it? ∞

2009 cassini all-stars

2009 was a spectacular year for the Cassini spacecraft, which in July celebrated five years in orbit around Saturn. I've been following the mission pretty closely since then, and the results cease to amaze me. So to wrap up the year, I decided to join in on all the "best-of-09" blog action with my very own 2009 Cassini All-Star Team! The following are, in my mind, the 12 most captivating images to have hurdled a billion miles through space this year, from the eyes of Cassini's cameras to a few desktops in Colorado, and then out onto the World Wide Web for all to enjoy. Kudos to Carolyn Porco and the rest of her CICLOPS team for a job well done. Can't wait to see what's in store for 2010! &infin

12. View From Down Under
A lovely natural-color view taken from roughly 48 degrees below the plane of Saturn's rings. The dark stripe across Saturn is actually the shadow created by the sun shining on the rings edge-on.

11. Ring Around Titan
Not the most detailed image ever taken of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, but this eerie view won me over nevertheless. Look closely and you'll see a very thin ring around the moon's outer edge, demarcating the boundary of Titan's thick atmosphere. This shot is best viewed enlarged.

10. Slopes of Enceladus
In November, Cassini performed two flybys of Saturn's sixth-largest moon, Enceladus. One of the most intriguing moons in the entire solar system, Enceladus features rare geological activity at its southern pole. This close-up of the "tiger stripe" region, taken from only about 1,000 miles above the surface, highlights icy ridges that seem ripe for ripping up on skis or snowboard!

9. Shades of Gray
While I of course enjoy the color views that Cassini's cameras occasionally capture, there's something stark and haunting about a scene like this one, with the planet's rings shown in various shades of gray. Simply stunning.

8. Prometheus Streaming
This one really surprised me. On the lower left you'll notice the 53-mile-wide potato-shaped moon Prometheus making its way through Saturn's ribbony F ring. But also cool are the dark trails to the right, which Prometheus left previously on the ring!

7. Into the Darkness
Taken as the coming winter approached Saturn's southern pole and prepared to cloak it in darkness, this image bespoke to me the enormity of the jeweled planet; the stormy vortex seen here is roughly as large as the Earth! Looking closely at the whorls and eddys within, you can't help but be humbled by the scale of it all.

6. Spouting Plumes
Down is up in this shot of Enceladus, taken during one of the November flybys. Spouting from the moon's active southern pole are jets of water and other volatiles, which are believed to spew out like water geysers here on Earth. I love that the image is so off-center; though likely done to make sure Cassini captured the full extent of the plumes, to me it just makes the composition that much more compelling.

5. ...Now You Don't
I love, love, love this image...so much going on! For one thing, you have Saturn's shadow making the rings seem to disappear, which is spooky and awesome. The fact that Saturn's night side is visible at all here is a result of "ringshine," an effect in which the light bouncing off the lit part of the rings scatters and hits the planet's surface, faintly illuminating it. You'll also notice the long shadow of Saturn's moon Tethys on the rings at the upper right. And last but not least, the small moon Janus can be seen hovering above the top ring. Amazing!

4. Pock-marked Moon
Sure, Saturn has many small, cratered moons, and yes, a lot of them look alike. But in my mind, this shot of the 660-mile-wide Tethys belongs in an art gallery. Gouging the surface at right is the large crater Penelope.

3. Titanic Shadow
What a beautiful shot of Saturn, its thin ring plane, and that ginormous shadow cast by the Saturnian system's largest moon, Titan. Wow.

2. Akimbo
I don't even want to spoil this one with words. If it weren't for the next shot, this would be my winner for 2009. Don't miss the closeup.

1. The Rite of Spring
I have to say, it was pretty difficult to sort through Cassini's cache of images to pick my favorite dozen from this year. But there was never any doubt as to which one would top the list. My photographic Cassini All-Star of 2009 is this truly mesmerizing view of Saturn during the planet's equinox this past August. In the interest of keeping this post to a manageable length, I'll say no more, but I urge you to visit the image's description page to read about how the shot was taken and what, exactly, is going on. You can also check out this brief summary from Time Magazine, which named the photo to its 2009 Year In Pictures.

Honorable Mention: The Seven Sisters
Okay, I had to add one more to the list, for personal reasons! This photo of the Pleiades cluster was actually taken in 2008, but it was released to the public back in April. As you might have noticed, these familiar stars (especially one in particular) are near to my heart, so it was wonderful for me to find out that Cassini would take a moment give them a look-see :)

channeling ada: carolyn porco rules the solar system

Today marks the beginning of a new holiday called Ada Lovelace Day. For those of you not up on your 19th century scientists, Ada Lovelace was the only legitimate daughter of British poet Lord Byron and a contemporary of inventor Charles Babbage, who is famous for having invented an early computing machine, his so-called Analytical Engine. Lovelace became a correspondent with Babbage, and many historians hold that she wrote several programs that would have helped the Analytical Engine run had it been built. For her contributions, Lovelace is often considered the world's first computer programmer.

A few months ago, I learned that an online petition was going around asking bloggers to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day by writing a post, to be published on or before March 24th, that told about any woman who had contributed in some way to the field of technology. Since I regularly read up on, and often write about, women in science and technology in my professional life, I figured this assignment would be a no-brainer. And while I am aware of quite a few women who have in one way or another made significant contributions to technology, there was really no woman that I wanted to write about more than Dr. Carolyn Porco.

Even if you've never heard of Dr. Porco, you've undoubtedly seen her work. She is the lead imaging scientist for one of the most successful—and sexy—planetary space missions of all time: Cassini-Huygens. She also participated in the Voyager missions and is currently on the imaging team for the New Horizons mission, which is on its way to the outer solar system to photograph and study Pluto and its three known moons (among other things) for the first time.

Born in New York City, Porco was drawn to astronomy as part of a spiritual quest, after her explorations of various religions proved unfulfilling. "But it was the sight of Saturn with a telescope from a New York rooftop that clinched it," she admitted to me the last time I spoke with her at length about her career. Today, Porco works out of the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations (CICLOPS) in Colorado. She's become an expert in imaging Saturn, its rings, and especially its moons, and in coaxing secrets of these bodies from mere pixels of light sent back to planet Earth. She's also been a NASA advisor on numerous occasions, and she has experience as a university professor, teaching both undergraduates and grad students.

In speaking to Porco, she quickly betrays her roots with her Yankee accent, her persuasive New York style, and her cutting humor. Undoubtedly shaped by her early quest to understand our origins, Porco is passionate about human destiny in the cosmos. And like another famous New Yorker, the late Richard Feynman, she's adept at explaining complex scientific principles so that even the most elementary learner can catch her meaning. She has the tendency to comport herself as a young girl for whom the realization that stars aren't just pinpricks of light but giant balls of superhot gas millions of miles away is, like, the coolest thing ever. Of course, the best thing about this excitement is that it's as infectious as an office cold in mid-February. To see what I mean, I urge you to check out the talk that she gave, entitled "Fly me to the moons of Saturn," as part of the TED lecture series in 2007.

Last, but certainly not least, Porco has become an ambassador for women and young girls who so desperately need exemplars to look up to in technology and the physical sciences. When I asked her about her role as an accomplished woman in a field dominated by men, Porco didn't shy away from the issue but rather acknowledged that the glass ceiling is a shifty thing: "Women have won the strategic battles; all the laws are in place to make sure that we don't get abused with gender bias and so on," she said. "But it's the tactical battles that are difficult for women. The way science is conducted is very combative...If a man behaves aggressively, he's a stud, he's admired. If a woman behaves that way, people are shocked. It turns people off. It's different cultural expectations that we are up against."

And so, on this Ada Lovelace Day, I salute Dr. Carolyn Porco for her perseverance and her enthusiasm; for her insight and her curiosity. Let us hope that more women like her will read this and some of the other 1,600+ blog posts pledged for this event and be inspired to do great things. ∞

meanwhile, in outer space...

In case you've forgotten how insignificant we all are in the grand scale of the universe, I offer you these stunning new images from Saturn, our gigantic planetary neighbor. These snapshots were all taken recently by the Cassini spacecraft. For details on the images, check out the official Ciclops imaging site. Gorgeous! ∞

cassini lives on

Oh, happy day! Today NASA announced that the Cassini spaceraft, which has been orbiting around Saturn and its moons for the past four years, will have its life extended until 2010. The mission, which has provided scientists with gobs and gobs of new data and images from the Saturnian neighborhood of our solar system (including the ridiculously cool shot you see here of a total eclipse of the sun), was originally scheduled to end this July. I interviewed Cassini imaging team leader Carolyn Porco back in 2006 for Discover magazine, and she said she thought it would be "colosally shortsighted for NASA and Congress to halt the Cassini mission [this year], when it has become one of the most phenomenally successful endeavors we've ever undertaken." Apparently, her bosses agreed, and I couldn't be happier for the program, which was actually also one of the last missions that my uncle worked on before retiring from the European Space Agency (the mission is a joint NASA/ESA/Italian Space Agency project). ∞