Carolyn was the Director of the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory. She was in charge of the Cassini imaging science experiment and it was also where Cassini images were processed and shown to the public.

During this mission, Carolyn and her team discovered Saturn’s seven moons and a small moonlet in the outer B-ring. They also found new rings of Saturn.

Carolyn and Mark Marley had made a prediction in 1993 that acoustic vibrations in the body of Saturn were responsible for creating some features in the ring of Saturn. This was later confirmed by Cassini data in 2013.

In 2005, Carolyn’s team was also responsible for the first sighting of ahydrocarbon lake, and a lake district in Titan. Her team was also responsible for the first sighting of plumes erupting from Saturn’s sixth moon.

Other Achievements

Carolyn is a member of the imaging team for the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.

Carolyn also planned to capture a picture of Saturn with the Earth on July 19th 2013. This image was named “The Day the Earth Smiled” as people all over the world celebrated humanity’s place on Earth by smiling when the picture was taken. Carolyn was also part of the faculty of the University of Arizona from 1983 to 2001. She achieved a tenured professorship in 1991 and taught graduates and undergraduates.

Carolyn often speaks about Cassini missions and planetary exploration and
has appeared at conferences such as TED. She held a talk in 2007 named “The Human Journey” in which she spoke about the exploration of the Saturn moons.In this talk, she invited her audience to imagine a certain scene on the moon’s surface. This allowed the audience to visualize what she had seen.

She did another talk in 2009 for TED named “Could a Saturn moon harbor life?” Carolyn has also been a CNN guest analyst and consultant on astronomy as well as radio shows and other TV appearances explaining science.

Carolyn worked as an advisor for the film “Contact”. It was based on a novel by the astronomer, Carl Sagan and Jodie Foster, who played the heroine in the film, had used Carolyn as a real life model as a guide for her performance.

She has been in many interviews in which she talks about planetary exploration but also about the conflict between science and religion. Carolyn has also written a number of articles that have been published on “The Sunday Times” and “Astronomy”.

Carolyn is also the CEO of Diamond Sky Productions which is a small company that is devoted to the scientific use of planetary images and computer graphics that presents science to the public.