Carolyn Porco, leader of the imaging team for NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn.

Stunning Saturn in images

See Saturn with new eyes at Vernon Memorial Lecture on Oct. 15

TEXT SIZE

1:04 p.m., Sept. 17, 2014--Images of Saturn, its spectacular rings and icy moons, are bound to elicit some cosmic awe at the upcoming Harcourt C. (Ace) Vernon Memorial Lecture at the University of Delaware.

Carolyn Porco, leader of the imaging team for NASA’s Cassini mission, will present a sweeping tour of the ringed planet on Wednesday, Oct. 15, at UD’s Clayton Hall Conference Center. The free, public lecture, “A Decade at Saturn,” will begin at 7:30 p.m. To ensure seating, register in advance on this website

Research Stories

Chronic wounds

UD's Millicent Sullivan and Kristi Kiick have received a $1.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health for research that could provide a new approach to the treatment of chronic wounds.

Prof. Heck's legacy

The American Chemical Society is highlighting the legacy of the late Nobel laureate Richard Heck, the Willis F. Harrington Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the University of Delaware with a digital tribute on its publications website.

In the past 10 years, Cassini has been delivering valuable data, images and movies about Saturn and its 62 moons to scientists around the globe. The spacecraft’s Imaging Science Subsystem consists of a wide-angle camera for extended spatial coverage at lower resolution and a narrow-angle camera that could see a quarter from a distance of nearly 2.5 miles.

“Some of my favorite images are those in black and white, showing the shadow-draped Saturn atmosphere, the paper-thin rings, and one or two lonely little moons,” Porco says. “The multiple-world compositions are also stunning.”

The co-author of more than 115 scientific papers in astronomy and planetary science, Porco has been involved in numerous discoveries, including the recent finding of 101 geysers spewing icy particles on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons. Could Enceladus be the most accessible habitable zone in the solar system outside of Earth?

Porco has received numerous awards and honors, among them the Carl Sagan Medal, presented by the American Astronomical Society for Excellence in the Communication of Science to the Public. In 2012, Time magazine named Porco one of the 25 most influential people in space.

The Vernon Memorial Lecture, held annually at UD, is sponsored by the University’s Delaware Asteroseismic Research Center and the Mount Cuba Astronomical Observatory in Greenville, Delaware. The lecture honors the late Harcourt C. (Ace) Vernon (1907-78), who was one of the observatory’s founders and the first chairman of its board of trustees.

Photo by Phil Mumford/The New York Times

Image courtesy of NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

News Media Contact

University of Delaware
Communications and Public Affairs
302-831-NEWS
publicaffairs@udel.edu

UDaily is produced by
Communications and Public Affairs

The Academy Building
105 East Main Street
University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19716 | USA
Phone: (302) 831-2792
email: publicaffairs@udel.edu
www.udel.edu/cpa