A Quote by Carolyn Porco

For planetary explorers like us, there is little that can compare to the sighting of activity on another solar system body. This has been a heart-stopper, and surely one of our most thrilling results.

Carolyn Porco

Quote Topics

Activity Another Been Body Compare Explorers Heart Like Little Most Our Planetary Results Solar Solar System Surely System Thrilling Us

Quote Author

Carolyn Porco
American - Scientist
Born: March 6, 1953

We really just didn't realize the diversity of planetary types in our solar system. Pluto looked like a misfit because it was the only one we saw. And just as a Chihuahua is still a dog, these ice dwarfs are still planetary bodies. They're large enough to make themselves round by self gravity, and they surely pass the test of planethood.

Alan Stern

As our sensitivity improves, we are finally seeing planets with longer orbital periods, planetary systems that look more like our solar system.

Debra Fischer

Small bodies in our solar system, like comets and asteroids, help us understand how the solar system formed and provide opportunities to advance exploration.

John M. Grunsfeld

It is my thesis that flying saucers are real and that they are space ships from another solar system.There is no doubt in my mind that these objects are interplanetary craft of some sort. I and my colleagues are confident that they do not originate in our solar system.

Hermann Oberth

The Moon and Mars were the two most likely candidates for life in the solar system; what exists beyond our solar system is mere guesswork.

Walter Lang

Despite the immense distance between our own solar system (including the earth) and the nearest other solar systems, a journey from one system to another is theoretically possible, once an unlimited source of power is developed.

Hermann Oberth

Most of the solar system resides beyond the orbits of the asteroids. There is more to learn there about general planetary processes than on Mars.

Carolyn Porco

For most of us, the thought of traveling to another galaxy probably seems like science fiction. But the truth is, the foundation for humankind's journey beyond Earth's solar system is being laid right now aboard our very own International Space Station.

Victor J. Glover

I'd love to go into space again if there were a mission to Mars. I'd also love to go to a completely different planetary system, out of our solar system.

Mae Jemison

The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there's no place for it in the endeavor of science. We do not know beforehand where fundamental insights will arise from about our mysterious and lovely solar system. The history of our study of our solar system shows us clearly that accepted and conventional ideas are often wrong, and that fundamental insights can arise from the most unexpected sources.

Carl Sagan

Not that chance dominated events in the early Solar System, for scientific determinism was also functioning. But chance is an essential factor in all evolutionary events, and the birth and development of our planetary system were not exceptions.

Eric Chaisson

Hubble wasn't designed to look at objects in our solar system, but after it was launched, astronomers realized that with just a little bit of modification to the software, it could look at solar system objects.

Heidi Hammel

No matter how you measure it, whether you measure the amount of mass or you measure the number of bodies, most of our solar system exists out beyond the orbits of the asteroids. So we could not have claimed to know our own solar system until Voyager had toured the giant planets.

Carolyn Porco

New Horizons isn't just visiting Pluto; it's visiting this entire region. Whatever it finds, this will be a signal moment for planetary exploration - the capstone to our first reconnaissance of the planets of our solar system.

Alan Stern

I felt like I might as well have been living in another part of the solar system.