Carolyn Porco: Fly me to the moons of Saturn

[GypsyLeah]

This woman... she puts together beautiful strings of words but doesn't deliver them in a way that allows their impact to hit the audience.

[darrenholcomb42]

To quote Carl Sagan "A search (for alien intelligence) lasting decades would cost less than the budget over runs of a single modest weapons system in a single year".

[Electricdreamerb]

Poor Pluto D:

[barkpeeler2000]

i could listen to carolyn porco talk about the universe all day.

[eatingtacos000]

great video. saturn and its moons are truly beautiful

[darrenholcomb42]

I either know something or I don't know something. And I want to know-for a fact-as much about this universe as possible. Belief is too subject to human ego to trust in any way. To quote Douglas Adams "is not enough to see that a garden is beautiful without pretending there are fairies dwelling at the bottom of it". Reality is amazing and will always be so over religion which is just made up nonsense that didn't even exist until about 6000 years ago.

[rustyscrapper]

exploring the solar system would produce evidence that climate change is related to solar cycles. This evidence goes against man made climate change and carbon tax so space must not be exlpored.

They are all in with their frauds they can not go back on climate change or it would prove science is completely hijacked.

[omegavalerius]

@rustyscrapper

And yet the Americans just launched the most sophisticated solar exploring satellite system ever: The Solar Dynamics Observatory. And the French just launced their solar observatory: the Picard satellite. The Indians launch one next year. I'm sure you can dream up a way to make this information fit with your statement.

[intrascoobz]

Saturn and The American Film of Art. I'm thinking how a fresh and bright and captivating voice of that kathylee on regis philbin could be! She could tell a story couldn;t she? I'm left with feeling what if? from within , these just in case feelings 2question. Saturn , like the pits of hell , paint fumes radiating around the people's heads ? as in punishment for the carbon energy bills lost in support of showing the heinous pollutions humans create here on earth>bizarre? that's all.

[joanignasice]

Judy Garland era una gran astrònoma. Cada dia s´aprèn alguna cosa nova.

[elvisinpersonator]

Mrs Porko made believe the whole auditorium there are such things as nitrogen dunes. What kind of people attend these lectures?

[mousaey]

Funny, she called Andromeda a nebula!

[musik21]

Richard Dawkins dubbed Carolyn Porco as the female version of Carl Sagan. Yea! After watching COSMOS, I really considered being an astronomer, but I'm glad to be a massage therapist. ;)

[Dave51262]

Dr. Porco was very enthusiatic but I don't see this significance of all this. What does this mean? Why is this be important to anyone on earth learning about something so far away? I don't get it. If one of these moons were found to be exactly like earth, what could anyone do about it?

[Hyeto]

Well we could just sit on our planet and live our lives not caring about any of this. Or by exploring and learning more about our solar system and beyond we can gain a greater understanding of how planets form, how galaxies work and ultimately how we came to be. I ask you why not?

[daveadler]

wow, would it have killed the TED cinematographer to have actually SHOWN at a reasonable size the picture that drew audible gasps from the audience? I swear to god the TED camera people/video editors love to focus on the stupid person giving the speech, the person we've seen for 20 minutes. They rarely glance at the content, it's like pulling teeth.

[achievist]

In the immortal words of Randall Munroe:

"Science. It's works, bitches!"

[dp100eboggan]

I like her humor and her enthusiasm is great

[Aiden057]

One thing she does not mention is the astounding and mysterious hexagonal feature on Saturn's North Pole and the equally fascinating hurricane-like storm with a central eye at the South Pole. Those images can be seen on the NASA website and I would love to hear more discussion from her about the current scientific thinking on those. Saturn is a most mysterious and beautiful plant and system. She should have been given a full hour.

[figurhead]

Amazing, Carolyn's enthusiasm is so exciting to watch and really gets me excited also.

[SendPrestonToTheMoon]

nice work

[FiliberkeNys]

Superb unmanned spaceflight. Dr Porco is great!

[TOAFN]

This also shows how much information/knowledge control is going on. I'm sure this information is just the tip of the iceberg.

[visceralgristle]

What the hell are you talking about? Who's controlling what information? Why would anyone need to "control" information about Saturn?

[TOAFN]

I'm sure covert space programs don't exist. And cosmic top secret is a term invented by elves. right?

[visceralgristle]

Must be hard to keep all those astronomers around the world from talking about this stuff though, eh?

Yeah, there might be top secret spy satellite missions, but unless it's to do with national security, there's no reason to hide astronomical findings... it's just a waste of time and money.

[dreamdimensions]

I think the 50 million people in North America who have seen ufo's shouldn't be discounted

[tintinban]

The saturn picture taken while solar eclipse(shown in the final slide)was the most gorgeous thing to witness. Heaven in the Hell.

[BUnitLives]

This video made me cry. This is the most amazing thing I've ever witnessed in my entire life.

The idea that we could come from nowhere, gain the ability to perceive our own existence and beyond is amazing regardless of how we got here.

Everything is made up of different combinations of the same building blocks.

We sent an electronic visual representation of reality through space from a machine that really isn't fundamentally much differently

[Warren111able]

@BUnitLives

:)hello,.2 years on..did the video inspire you..?

[masterhellz]

i enjoyed this video as much for the great new info and the cool images as i do because of the passion displayed by Carolyn Porco.

after being unappreciated and relatively unnoticed by the general public she still has high enthusiasm for her work. you don't need to go any further than this response forum to see how many people don't see the significance of her work and think she is wasting time and even letting people starve...imagine what she must deal with on a broader scale.

[brickbungalow]

The manipulation of world economies to keep certain people poor and ignorant is intentional and deliberate. Also, it has nothing to do with the choice to spend money on space exploration. The advancement of science does far more to elevate standards of living than bleeding hearts ever have.

[Nagrobek78]

I have a question for people who complain that solar exploration should be abandoned and the resources should be guided towards feeding the poor and eradicading poverty. My question is - why solar exploration and not for example armaments, building thousands of new churches, mosks and temples, etc. worthless activities? Cause things I mentioned take up a lot more of resources than exploration of space, and give a lot less (if any) gain for humanity.

[themajikat]

And maybe dictionaries

[Nagrobek78]

wow... you must feel so smart right now

[themajikat]

Well even youtube comments should be spelled correctly even if they say nothing, have improper grammar, are blatantly obvious, are trolling, useless, an excuse for actual action, a place to one up someone because there really wasn't enough love in your household as a child or hull of mosks.

[Nagrobek78]

out of curiosity, which category my comment fall into? And yours?

[blakkoctopus]

21 from caniduh! ahahhaa

[masterhellz]

answer for that is simple...there is no money to be made from space exploration. no one was interested in constructing a moon base until someone realized that it can be a cheap and easy source of fuel and other easily exploitable things and whatcha-ma-jigs...

on the other hand there is always money in guns. (just stating the obvious, i know)

[AcidRain64]

Amen.

[Zbochenez]

first define "gain for humanity" so it can be measured. then take a random sample of religious institutions and find the average net gain for humanity inolved (negative or positive). then do the same with exploration of space. then compare the two averages. impossible to do? if so then, from a scientific point of view at least, your statement "give a lot less..." is of no value. maybe research already exists on this. can you provide links then

[xSnapper26x]

@Nagrobek78 Yeah I agree, I think churches (especially in the US) and here in Australia to a certain degree, basically go untaxed and have heaps of money to play with. Its ironic that GOD supposedly created the entire universe however seems to need a constant supply of money to continue his deeds, completely silly ...

[polkijm]

I loved hearing her talk. She was all "Oh wow, this is all so crazy amazing!" =P

I really hope she gets to go to these places someday.

[thisisapreviewvideo]

and they still havent found what they looking for..just like U2 song..

[thisisapreviewvideo]

feed the poor?

[jakemachina]

How about we give the poor jobs and let them feed themselves?

That way they're not poor anymore, they're just like everyone else.

[thisisapreviewvideo]

agree, how bout we spend dollars to make world an equal place rather than take space photos? we got saturn photos and hunger people at the same time, and those people dont know bout saturns, oxymoron

[polkijm]

Don't say that about stuff like this. This is one of the many diverse manifestation of the will to create and discover, to find joy in living. Without that, nothing matters. But that argument alone is not enough. The other important part is that the money spent on this is piddling. It vanishes next to military spending. THAT is HUGE.

[polkijm]

I just looked up the 2007 figures and punched them into the calculator. NASA's budget is 3% of the military's (NOT including nuclear weapons [they sneak those in under the DOE's budget], extra-budgetary supplements, and the black budget).

[musicalaviator]

Yep. Blowing each other up is an expensive buisiness. Far more expensive than sending remote-controlled cameras out to other planets.

[Warren111able]

@thisisapreviewvideo

contraception?!?

[xKCBEx]

very interesting presentation, I'll see about finding the image.

[xKCBEx]

Haven't found it yet but google Cassini images and look through the NASA multimedia library for the mission, it must be in there, there are some other neat images as well.

[shsnawada]

Does anyone know where its possible to download that saturn eclipse picture at 16:20?

[Warren111able]

@shsnawada

it'll well be copyright protected,,..and probably found in hard back for £29.99-if lucky.!!

[seanankerr]

I read in New Scientist that they've named a rock in orbit around Saturn "Frank" after the character in 2001!

Makes me laugh...

[visceralgristle]

Even funnier to me is the fact that Titan is awash in liquid farts. There's something beautiful yet hilarious about that.

[lovkraft]

That was a an amazing presentation. Carolyn is an inspiring presenter who really knows how to make her knowledge RELEVANT to the audience. I swear I got a lump in my throat when she was talking about Titan.

I say we send her to go talk to the first intelligent life-form we find!

[wintceas]

This get very interesting at 11:55 to 12:18 magnified 4x!

[d91lek]

Enceladus, the shire impregnator. Panspermia now means all infected planets spread spores.

[garethblake450]

outstanding

[thequantumflux]

This is what we should be concentrating on instead of delusions of religion

[wintceas]

Better still: delusions of war and terrorism.

[thequantumflux]

agreed

[EclairPerversePastry]

Science is so very beautiful.

[Warren111able]

@EclairPerversePastry

which in turn is relative.

[JohnPseudonym]

This is an amazing talk. Inspiring. Did anyone else notice that she said "human" like Carl Sagan did? "yuman"

[MikeSarno]

And the most amazing part of it all is that we all contribute money to our nations' space programs. Wow, what a great group project for the world!

[wintceas]

No! Most amazing is the American taxpayer contributing 100x more to USA wage war in poor countries around the globe. That's actually amazing!

[reivilo]

How did they get teh picture of the space craft if it was the only robot out there? I hate artist conceptualized science.

[primummovens]

Ehm, it was called the Cassini-Huygens. They were two robots, one the Cassini, and one the Huygens.

[musicalaviator]

More to the point, Huygens actually landed on Titan. That was the plan all along, I remember reading about it in School in the 1990's, and wishing it'd hurry up and get there. now it has. lol.

[JohnDeBunkTest]

Carolyn Porco ... High Priestess of Saturn.

We are all indebted to your dedication and hard work.

The one little blue pixel that is earth, cradled in the rings of Saturn, ... awe inspiring.

[MasterNinjaScarab]

She was such a delight to watch. Let us catch her spirit human race.

[KingBond16]

Phenomenal.

That picture at the end was simply amazing.

[theinquisitor]

She's great in the beyond belief lectures too. Madame Saturn they call her.

[nadiaTeeze]

bravo!!!

[philhellenes]

Magnificent presentation of a magnificent achievement. Now...how the fuck do we wake up the rest of Humanity?

[bramcorleone]

Precisely!! It should have been celibrated!

Unfortunately most people on Earth care more about a Paris Hilton being locked behind bars or a Britney Spears shaving her head, while being at the end of her career!

Space exploration is the key to the survival of human beings and therefore I don't care about paying taxes, which pay for the exploration of our solar system!

[ExMachine]

I celebrated!

[beefdlo]

:''') makes you proud to be human!

[revtyson]

I love Porco! Thank you :)

[dfarmer1584]

AWESOME! I love Dr. Porco! "Madam Saturn"

She is a disciple of Sagan, and a first rate "Minister of Science" in her own right.

[philhellenes]

Thanks for alerting me to this, D. Instant favourite. Took me "out there" for a few seconds. LOVE that feeling. :)

[dfarmer1584]

I was sure you'd love it Phil. ;)