Princeton University Louis Clark Vanuxem Lecture - Start Time is 6 pm

Twenty-eight years ago, the United States and Europe joined hands and set off together on a spectacular adventure. The Cassini mission called for a long journey across the solar system and entry into orbit around the planet Saturn, followed by an in-depth and comprehensive look at everything in the Saturn system. Cassini spent 13 years in residence at Saturn. In that time, it revealed a planetary system rich in scientific wonder and splendor beyond compare. Processes at work in the early solar system have been found within Saturn’s rings. The planet itself has been a lavish source of meteorological detail, permitting comparison with the Earth’s atmosphere. And environments found on and within Saturn’s moons give hope of learning the mechanisms by which life has arisen on our own planet and perhaps elsewhere in the cosmos. Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco will guide us through the enchanting realm of Saturn and the mission’s most profound scientific findings and conclude with the legacy that Cassini and six decades of planetary exploration have left behind. Carolyn Porco was the leader of the imaging science team on the Cassini mission in orbit around Saturn from 2004 to 2017; a veteran imaging scientist of the Voyager mission to the outer solar system in the 1980s; and an associate member of the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. She has co-authored over 125 scientific papers on a variety of subjects in astronomy and planetary science and has become a regular public commentator on science, astronomy, planetary exploration, and the intersection of science and religion. Her popular science writings have appeared in such distinguished publications as the London Sunday Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, Astronomy magazine, the PBS and BBC websites, the Arizona Daily Star, Sky and Telescope, Scientific American, and American Scientist. This event, sponsored by the Vanuxem Lecture Series, is free and open to the public with no ticket or reservation required. For further information on this and other events in the series, please see lectures.princeton.edu; follow us on twitter at @PrincetonPubLec; and visit Public Lecture’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/PrincetonUniversityPublicLectures/.