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It’s just two kids from the Bronx sitting around talking about looking up as Neil deGrasse Tyson chats with planetary scientist Carolyn Porco, aka Madame Saturn, leader of the Cassini Imaging Science team. The two discuss how Carolyn’s spiritual questioning at age 13 led her to search for the meaning of life by exploring the universe, eventually working on the Voyager missions and the Cassini spacecraft mission to orbit Saturn and its moons. Carolyn shares stories about her first brush with Carl Sagan and how he showed people the spirituality in science and the study of astronomy. You’ll learn about the scientific value of photography in space exploration – and how Carl and Prof. Bruce Murray had to fight to put cameras on spacecraft. Plus, Neil and comic co-host Chuck Nice discuss how gravity helped Voyager on its “Grand Planetary Tour”, what the surface of Titan is like, and what Neil wanted to play with in the bath as a child instead of a rubber ducky.
NOTE: All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: Madame Saturn: A Conversation with Carolyn Porco (Part 1).
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