Quotes by Carolyn Porco

“And so the plot thickens,”

“Enceladus is surprisingly warm, internally fractured and active ...”

“We have never seen anything like this before. There are spiral structures in the rings, there are gravity and density waves, but they are completely different things,”

“Weve been on the lookout for them since February, 2004. Spokes are one of those Saturn-system phenomena that we are keenly interested in understanding.”

“These are among the things we hope to learn. [The spokes] are obviously related to a host of processes…and may point to some important effects in understanding the magnetic field and the planets magnetosphere, and how these systems interact with the rings and atmosphere.”

“Well, in some sense we should have expected, if the recent models are correct, to see them on the dark side where the photoelectron abundance is low. So, I was surprised to see them. But once they showed up, I realized we should have expected them there all along.”

“Remember, Voyager was just a flyby, Cassini is in orbit. We have the opportunity for monitoring them and their behavior, their comings and goings, how they evolve, when they appear and disappear.”

“It felt like the old days, when we first saw the spokes. They are one weird phenomena and it was a joy to see them again…especially since we hadnt seen them yet and were eager to know why.”

“We had convinced ourselves that conditions wouldnt be right for seeing spokes on the lit side of the rings until about 2007, ... But this finding seems to be telling us that conditions on the dark side of the rings are almost as good right now for seeing spokes.”

“[Of intense interest will be a Cassini determination of the periodicity in the appearance of spokes. This will require monitoring spoke activity from a variety of geometries over several years.] Cassini has found that the SKR period has changed since Voyager, which though hard to believe, may mean that the rotation of Saturns interior has changed, ... That would be a finding of enormous consequence, so, well be looking very closely to see if the frequency of spoke activity has changed too.”