Quotes from Carolyn Porco

My whole entry into astronomy started from a spiritual place.

Titan is Saturn's largest moon, and, until Cassini had arrived, there was the largest single expanse of unexplored terrain that we had remaining in our solar system.

The questions that we scientist have about Saturn's rings are the questions that an ordinary person might be moved to ask when first seeing them, you know. What caused them? How did they get there? How long have they been around? How long are they going to last?

Even if the ocean on Enceladus starts out being as microbially poor as the pelagic ocean on Earth, which is the worst case, we still have a chance of seeing lots of organisms in the plumes.

Voyager found Saturn to be a planet with a complex interior, atmosphere, and magnetosphere. In its rings - a vast, gleaming disk of icy rubble - the mission recorded signs of the same physical mechanisms that were key in configuring the early solar system and similar disks of material around other stars.

Saturn itself is a giant planet, and there's much to be gained by investigating its meteorology and studying its magnetic field.

The Saturn system is a rich planetary system. It offers mystery, scientific insight, and obviously splendour beyond compare, and the investigation of this system has enormous cosmic reach... just studying the rings alone, we stand to learn a lot about the discs of stars and gas that we call the spiral galaxies.

Make education more accessible to women - all women, not just Americans.

I have a bias, and I don't deny that. But it's not so much an emotional attachment with objects that we study: it's a point of view based on the evidence. We simply know more about Enceladus.

I got into astronomy through an interest in religion.

It's so empowering to know the truth and to really understand something.

I'm used to fighting and arguing with males.