Fly me to the moons of Saturn

I am currently researching a design project to coincide with the International Year of Astronomy 2009. The IYA aims to spread awareness of astronomical science, and engage people worldwide in the study of astronomy with various projects and distributable media. The Technology, Entertainment and Design website (TED) – a ‘highbrow YouTube’ – is an excellent source of high-quality presentations on a wide variety of topics. In addressing the issue of how to introduce people to astronomy, I found much inspiration in a presentation given by NASA planetary scientist Carolyn Porco.

Porco’s talk focused on the photographic discoveries of the Cassini space probe, which studies the planet Saturn and its moons. She exhibits a clear understanding of how to make science approachable and engaging. Much like Carl Sagan, who was also a passionate astronomer and articulate speaker, she uses colourful metaphors to relate the alien environment of Saturn’s moon Titan, to the Earth. Porco talks of the hydrocarbon-rich environment as she imagined it before the mission, and being able to stand on the shores of lake Michigan brimming with paint thinner. She also speaks of an environment so cold that methane is a liquid, and can condense into clouds and rain down onto the surface, carving gullies and forming rivers, summarising: “methane is to Titan, what water is to the Earth”. Remarks like this hopefully communicate clearly to scientists and non-scientists, the similarities and differences between these two worlds, and so help people to better understand the relevance of planetary astronomy as means of realising our own place in the universe.

The driving force behind Porco’s presentation is the enthusiasm she radiates for her subject. She moves between relating scientific fact and personal emotion, at one point informing the audience of her goosebumps as she tells them about her belief in the Cassini mission’s significance: namely nations working together “in a colossal effort for good”, “to understand a planetary system that for all of human history had been unreachable”. Looking beyond what the mission has achieved so far, she ends her presentation by speculating about what the disovery of life would mean for humanity. She mentions the possibility of having discovered an environment, far from the sun an at Encyladus, where life could possibly survive. She relates the role of science to humanity's quest for understanding of our siginificance with a profound statement: If we could demonstrate that Genesis had occured not once, but twice, independently in our solar system, then that means by inference that it has occured a staggering number of times throughout the universe.

Click here to watch Carolyn Porco's 17-minute talk Fly me to the moons of Saturn.