In the next 18 minutes, I'm going to take you on a journey. And it's a journey that you and I have been on for many years now, and it began some 50 years ago, when humans first stepped off our planet. And in those 50 years, not only did we literally, physically set foot on the moon, but we have dispatched robotic spacecraft to all the planets -- all eight of them -- and we have landed on asteroids, we have rendezvoused with comets, and, at this point in time, we have a spacecraft on its way to Pluto, the body formerly known as a planet. And all of these robotic missions are part of a bigger human journey: a voyage to understand something, to get a sense of our cosmic place, to understand something of our origins, and how Earth, our planet, and we, living on it, came to be.
U slijedećih 18 minuta povest ću vas na putovanje. To je putovanje na kojem smo vi i ja već mnogo godina, a počelo je prije otprilike 50 godina, kada su ljudi iskoračili s ovog planeta. U tih 50 godina, ne samo da smo doslovno zakoračili na Mjesec, nego smo poslali robotske letjelice na sve planete Sunčevog sustava -- svih osam -- sletjeli smo i na asteroide, susreli se s kometima, a trenutno imamo letjelicu na putu za Pluton, nebesko tijelo nekada poznato kao planet. A sve te robotske misije dio su još većeg putovanja čovječanstva: putovanja do razumijevanja, kako bi razvili dojam o našem mjestu u svemiru, da shvatimo nešto o našem porijeklu, o porijeklu Zemlje, našeg planeta, pa i nas, koji na njoj živimo.
And of all the places in the solar system that we might go to and search for answers to questions like this, there's Saturn. And we have been to Saturn before -- we visited Saturn in the early 1980s -- but our investigations of Saturn have become far more in-depth in detail since the Cassini spacecraft, traveling across interplanetary space for seven years, glided into orbit around Saturn in the summer of 2004, and became at that point the farthest robotic outpost that humanity had ever established around the Sun.
Od svih mjesta u Sunčevu sustavu na koja bismo mogli otići i tražiti odgovore na pitanja poput ovih, imamo Saturn. A na Saturnu smo već bili -- posjetili smo Saturn u ranim 1980-ima -- ali istraživanja Saturna postala su daleko dublja i detaljnija otkad je letjelica Cassini, koja putuje interplanetarnim prostorom već 7 godina, na ljeto 2004. ušla u Saturnovu orbitu i time postala najudaljenija robotska stanica koju je čovječanstvo ikada uspostavilo u okolici Sunca.
Now, the Saturn system is a rich planetary system. It offers mystery, scientific insight and obviously splendor beyond compare, and the investigation of this system has enormous cosmic reach. In fact, just studying the rings alone, we stand to learn a lot about the discs of stars and gas that we call the spiral galaxies. And here's a beautiful picture of the Andromeda Nebula, which is our closest, largest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way. And then, here's a beautiful composite of the Whirlpool Galaxy, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Saturnov sustav je bogat planetarni sustav. Nudi tajnovitost, mogućnost znanstvenog uvida i neusporedivu ljepotu i sjaj, a istraživanje ovog sustava ima velik kozmološki značaj. Zapravo, samo proučavajući Saturnove prstene naučili smo puno o diskovima zvijezda i plina koje nazivamo spiralnim galaksijama. Ovo je prekrasna slika maglice Andromeda, najbliže spiralne galaksije našem Mliječnom putu. Ovo je kompozitni snimak predivne galaksije Vrtlog slikan svemirskim teleskopom Hubble.
So the journey back to Saturn is really part of and is also a metaphor for a much larger human voyage to understand the interconnectedness of everything around us, and also how humans fit into that picture. And it pains me that I can't tell you all that we have learned with Cassini. I can't show you all the beautiful pictures that we've taken in the last two and a half years, because I simply don't have the time. So I'm going to concentrate on two of the most exciting stories that have emerged out of this major exploratory expedition that we are conducting around Saturn, and have been for the past two and a half years.
Prema tome, putovanje do Saturna zapravo je dio -- ali i metafora za -- puno veće putovanje čovječanstva ka razumijevanju međusobne povezanosti svega oko nas, kao i toga kako se ljudi uklapaju u tu sliku. I boli me što vam ne mogu ispričati sve što smo naučili pomoću Cassinija -- ne mogu vam pokazati sve te lijepe slike koje smo uslikali kroz zadnjih dvije i pol godine zato što mi jednostavno nedostaje vremena. Zato ću se usredotočiti na dvije najuzbudljivije priče koje su nastale u ovoj velikoj istraživačkoj ekspediciji koju provodimo u okolici Saturna već dvije i pol godine.
Saturn is accompanied by a very large and diverse collection of moons. They range in size from a few kilometers across to as big across as the U.S. Most of the beautiful pictures we've taken of Saturn, in fact, show Saturn in accompaniment with some of its moons. Here's Saturn with Dione, and then, here's Saturn showing the rings edge-on, showing you just how vertically thin they are, with the moon Enceladus. Now, two of the 47 moons that Saturn has are standouts.
Saturn prati vrlo velika i raznolika grupa mjeseca. Imaju raspon promjera od nekoliko kilometara do otprilike veličine SAD-a. Neke od najlijepših slika Saturna zapravo prikazuju Saturn zajedno s nekima od njegovih mjeseca. Ovo je Saturn s Dionom, a ovo je Saturn s vertikalno postavljenim prstenom gdje vidite koliko je zapravo prsten tanak, tu je i mjesec Enkelad. Od 47 Saturnovih mjeseca, dva se ističu.
And those are Titan and Enceladus. Titan is Saturn's largest moon, and, until Cassini had arrived there, was the largest single expanse of unexplored terrain that we had remaining in our solar system. And it is a body that has long intrigued people who've watched the planets. It has a very large, thick atmosphere, and in fact, its surface environment was believed to be more like the environment we have here on the Earth, or at least had in the past, than any other body in the solar system. Its atmosphere is largely molecular nitrogen, like you are breathing here in this room, except that its atmosphere is suffused with simple organic materials like methane and propane and ethane. And these molecules high up in the atmosphere of Titan get broken down, and their products join together to make haze particles. This haze is ubiquitous. It's completely global and enveloping Titan. And that's why you cannot see down to the surface with our eyes in the visible region of the spectrum.
To su Titan i Enkelad. Titan je Saturnov najveći mjesec, i dok Cassini nije stigao ondje, bio je to najveći pojedinačni dio neistraženog terena koji nam je ostao u Sunčevu sustavu. Ovo nebesko tijelo je dugo intrigiralo ljude koji su promatrali planete. Ima vrlo obilnu, gustu atmosferu. Zapravo, vjerovali smo da je okoliš na njegovoj površini sličniji okolišu kakvog imamo na Zemlji ili bar okolišu kakav je bio na Zemlji u prošlosti, od bilo kojeg drugog nebeskog tijela u Sunčevom sustavu. Njegovu atmosferu velikim dijelom čine molekule dušika, kakve udišemo i u ovoj prostoriji, samo što je ta atmosfera ispunjena jednostavnim organskim spojevima poput metana, propana i etana. Ove molekule se sakupljaju visoko u Titanovoj atmosferi razgrade se, a njihovi proizvodi se spoje u čestice sumaglice. Ova sumaglica je sveprisutna, potpuno globalna i obavija Titan. I to je razlog zašto ne možemo vidjeti površinu svojim očima, u vidljivom dijelu spektra.
But these haze particles, it was surmised, before we got there with Cassini, over billions and billions of years, gently drifted down to the surface and coated the surface in a thick organic sludge. So like the equivalent, the Titan equivalent, of tar, or oil, or what -- we didn't know what. But this is what we suspected. And these molecules, especially methane and ethane, can be liquids at the surface temperatures of Titan. And so it turns out that methane is to Titan what water is to the Earth. It's a condensable in the atmosphere, and so recognizing this circumstance brought to the fore a whole world of bizarre possibilities. You can have methane clouds, OK, and above those clouds, you have this hundreds of kilometers of haze, which prevent any sunlight from getting to the surface. The temperature at the surface is some 350 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.
Te čestice sumaglice, bar se tako pretpostavljalo prije što smo tamo stigli s Cassinijem, su milijardama godina lagano klizile ka površini i formirale omotač debelog organskog mulja. Nešto poput Titanovog ekvivalenta katrana, nafte ili nečeg -- nismo znali čega. Ali na to smo sumnjali. Te molekule, posebice metan i etan, mogu biti u tekućem stanju na temperaturama površine Titana. Prema tome, metan je Titanu ono što je voda Zemlji. Može se kondenzirati u atmosferi, pa je prepoznavanje ove okolnosti dovelo do izražaja čitav niz bizarnih mogućnosti. Mogu postojati oblaci metana, a iznad njih stotine kilometara sumaglice koja onemogućava da imalo Sunčeva svjetla dopre do površine. Temperatura površine iznosi otprilike -175 stupnjeva celzijusa.
But despite that cold, you could have rain falling down on the surface of Titan. And doing on Titan what rain does on the Earth: it carves gullies; it forms rivers and cataracts; it can create canyons; it can pool in large basins and craters. It can wash the sludge off high mountain peaks and hills, down into the lowlands. So stop and think for a minute. Try to imagine what the surface of Titan might look like. It's dark. High noon on Titan is as dark as deep earth twilight on the Earth. It's cold, it's eerie, it's misty, it might be raining, and you might be standing on the shores of Lake Michigan brimming with paint thinner. (Laughter)
No bez obzira na ovu hladnoću, mogla bi padati kiša po površini Titana. I činiti na Titanu ono što kiša radi na Zemlji, urezuje kanale, formira rijeke i vodopade. Može stvarati kanjone, formirati velika porječja i grotla. Može ispirati mulj s vrhova planina i s brda niže, u nizine. Zaustavite se i razmislite za minutu. Pokušajte zamisliti kako bi površina Titana mogla izgledati. Mračno je -- podne na Titanu jednako je mračno kao ponoć na Zemlji. Hladno je, jezivo je, magla, moguće da pada kiša, moguće da stojite na obalama jezera Michigan obliveni razrjeđivačem za boju.
That is the view that we had of the surface of Titan before we got there with Cassini, and I can tell you that what we have found on Titan, though it is not the same in detail, is every bit as fascinating as that story is. And for us, it has been like -- the Cassini people -- it has been like a Jules Verne adventure come true. As I said, it has a thick, extensive atmosphere. This is a picture of Titan, backlit by the Sun, with the rings as a beautiful backdrop. And yet another moon there -- I don't even know which one it is. It's a very extensive atmosphere. We have instruments on Cassini which can see down to the surface through this atmosphere, and my camera system is one of them. And we have taken pictures like this. And what you see is bright and dark regions, and that's about as far as it got for us. It was so mystifying: we couldn't make out what we were seeing on Titan. When you look closer at this region, you start to see things like sinuous channels -- we didn't know. You see a few round things. This, we later found out, is, in fact, a crater, but there are very few craters on the surface of Titan, meaning it's a very young surface. And there are features that look tectonic. They look like they've been pulled apart. Whenever you see anything linear on a planet, it means there's been a fracture, like a fault. And so it's been tectonically altered.
Ovako smo zamišljali površinu Titana prije no što smo tamo došli s Cassinijem, i mogu vam reći da je ono što smo pronašli na Titanu, makar se detalji razlikuju, jednako fascinirajuće kao i ova priča. A nama je to bilo kao -- za Cassinijeve ljude bilo je kao da se Jules Verneova avantura ostvaruje. Kao što sam rekla, ima gustu, obilnu atmosferu. Ovo je slika Titana straga obasjanog Suncem i prstenima kao predivnom pozadinom. I još jedan mjesec -- čak niti ne znam koji točno. Atmosfera je vrlo obilna. Na Cassiniju imamo instrumente kojima možemo vidjeti do površine kroz ovu atmosferu, takva je i moja kamera. Uslikali smo slike poput ove. Ono što vidite su svijetle i tamne regije, a to je otprilike onoliko koliko smo i mi mogli vidjeti. To je bilo toliko tajnovito -- ni mi nismo mogli shvatiti što zapravo gledamo na Titanu. Kada se zagledate bliže u ovu regiju, onda vidite stvari poput vijugavih kanala, nismo znali. Vidite nekoliko okruglih stvari. Ovo, kasnije smo saznali, je zapravo krater, ali vrlo je malo kratera na površini Titana, što znači da se radi o vrlo mladoj površini. Tu su i značajke koje djeluju tektonski. Izgledaju kao da su se razdvojile. Kad god vidite nešto linearno na planetu, znači da je došlo do frakture, poput nedostatka. Prema tome, tektonski se promijenilo.
But we couldn't make sense of our images, until, six months after we got into orbit, an event occurred that many have regarded as the highlight of Cassini's investigation of Titan. And that was the deployment of the Huygens probe, the European-built Huygens probe that Cassini had carried for seven years across the solar system. We deployed it to the atmosphere of Titan, it took two and a half hours to descend, and it landed on the surface. And I just want to emphasize how significant an event this is. This is a device of human making, and it landed in the outer solar system for the first time in human history. It is so significant that, in my mind, this was an event that should have been celebrated with ticker tape parades in every city across the U.S. and Europe, and sadly, that wasn't the case. (Laughter).
Ali nismo mogli otkriti što to točno slike prikazuju, dok se, šest mjeseci nakon što smo dospjeli u orbitu, nije zbio događaj kojeg mnogi smatraju vrhuncem Cassinijevog istraživanja Titana. A to je bilo postavljanje sonde Huygens, u Europi napravljene sonde Huygens koju je Cassini nosio sedam godina Sunčevim sustavom. Izbacili smo je u atmosferu Titana, trebalo je dva i pol sata da se spusti i sletjela je na površinu. I samo želim nagalsiti koliko je značajan ovaj događaj. Ovaj uređaj, kojeg su napravili ljudi, sletio je po prvi put u ljudskoj povijesti u vanjskome dijelu Sunčeva sustava. Ovo je toliko značajno da se, bar po meni, ovaj događaj trebao proslaviti kičastim paradama u svakom gradu u SADu i Europi, ali nažalost, tome nije bilo tako. (Smijeh)
It was significant for another reason. This is an international mission, and this event was celebrated in Europe, in Germany, and the celebratory presentations were given in English accents, and American accents, and German accents, and French and Italian and Dutch accents. It was a moving demonstration of what the words "united nations" are supposed to mean: a true union of nations joined together in a colossal effort for good. And, in this case, it was a massive undertaking to explore a planet, and to come to understand a planetary system that, for all of human history, had been unreachable, and now humans had actually touched it. So it was -- I mean, I'm getting goose bumps just talking about it. It was a tremendously emotional event, and it's something that I will personally never forget, and you shouldn't either. (Applause).
Značajno je iz još jednog razloga. Ovo je međunarodna misija, i ovaj događaj se proslavio u Europi, u Njemačkoj, a poslavne prezentacije su se držale na engleskom jeziku, na njemačkom, francuskom, talijanskom i nizozemskom jeziku. Bila je to dirljiva demonstracija onoga što bi riječi "Ujedinjeni narodi" trebale značiti: istinska unija naroda spojenih zajedno u kolosalnom trudu za opće dobro. U ovom slučaju je to bio ogroman pothvat da se istraži planet i da se shvati jedan planetarni sustav koji je kroz cijelu povijest čovječanstvu bio nedostižan, a sada su ga ljudi zapravo dotaknuli. Bio je to -- mislim, naježim se na sam spomen toga, bio je to vrlo emocionalan događaj, i to je nešto što ja osobno nikada neću zaboraviti, a ne biste trebali ni vi. (Pljesak)
But anyway, the probe took measurements of the atmosphere on the way down, and it also took panoramic pictures. And I can't tell you what it was like to see the first pictures of Titan's surface from the probe. And this is what we saw. And it was a shocker, because it was everything we wanted those other pictures taken from orbit to be. It was an unambiguous pattern, a geological pattern. It's a dendritic drainage pattern that can be formed only by the flow of liquids. And you can follow these channels and you can see how they all converge. And they converge into this channel here, which drains into this region. You are looking at a shoreline. Was this a shoreline of fluids? We didn't know. But this is somewhat of a shoreline.
No svejedno, sonda je vršila mjerenja atmosfere dok se spuštala, a napravila je i panoramske slike. I ne mogu vam opisati kako je bilo gledati te prve slike Titanove površine uslikane sondom. A ovo je ono što smo vidjeli. A bilo je šokirajuće, jer je to bilo upravo ono što smo željeli od onih fotografija slikanih u orbiti da budu. Nedvosmisleno, to je bio geološki uzorak. To je uzorak dendritičke drenaže kojeg može formirati jedino protok tekućine. Možete pratiti ove kanale i možete vidjeti kako se oni spajaju. A spajaju se u ovaj kanal ovdje, koji otječe u ovu regiju. Gledate u obalni pojas. Je li ovo bio obalni pojas tekućina? Nismo znali. Ali ovo je pozamašni obalni pojas.
This picture is taken at 16 kilometers. This is the picture taken at eight kilometers, OK? Again, the shoreline. Okay, now, 16 kilometers, eight kilometers -- this is roughly an airline altitude. If you were going to take an airplane trip across the U.S., you would be flying at these altitudes. So, this is the picture you would have at the window of Titanian Airlines as you fly across the surface of Titan. (Laughter)
Ova fotografija je uslikana na 16 kilometara. Ovo je fotografija uslikana na 8 kilometara. Opet, obalni pojas. U redu, 16 kolimetara, 8 kilometara -- ovo je otprilike visina leta aviona. Ako biste otišli na put avionom preko SADa, letjeli biste na ovim visinama. Dakle, ovo je slika kakvu biste vidjeli kroz prozor Titan Airlinesa dok letite preko površine Titana. (Smijeh)
And then finally, the probe came to rest on the surface, and I'm going to show you, ladies and gentlemen, the first picture ever taken from the surface of a moon in the outer solar system. And here is the horizon, OK? These are probably water ice pebbles, yes? (Applause). And obviously, it landed in one of these flat, dark regions and it didn't sink out of sight. So it wasn't fluid that we landed in. What the probe came down in was basically the Titan equivalent of a mud flat. This is an unconsolidated ground that is suffused with liquid methane. And it's probably the case that this material has washed off the highlands of Titan through these channels that we saw, and has drained over billions of years to fill in low-lying basins. And that is what the Huygens probe landed in.
I, konačno, sonda je sletjela na površinu, i sada ću vam pokazati, dame i gospodo, prvu fotografiju ikada slikanu s površine mjeseca u vanjskom Sunčevu sustavu. Ovo je taj obzor. Ovo su vjerojatno komadići leda, da? (Pljesak) I očito, sletio je na jednu od onih ravnih, tamnih regija i nije nestao s vidika. Prema tome, ono na što smo sletjeli nije bila tekućina. Sonda je zapravo sletjela na Titanov ekvivalent blata. To je nekonsolidirano tlo prožeto tekućim metanom. I vjerojatno se radi o tome da se ovaj materijal ispirao s visokih područja Titana kroz one kanale koje smo vidjeli, i odvodio se milijardama godina da bi ispunio bazene na nizinama. I to je ono u što je sletjela sonda Huygens.
But still, there was no sign in our images, or even in the Huygens' images, of any large, open bodies of fluids. Where were they? It got even more puzzling when we found dunes. OK, so this is our movie of the equatorial region of Titan, showing these dunes. These are dunes that are 100 meters tall, separated by a few kilometers, and they go on for miles and miles and miles. There's hundreds, up to a 1,000 or 1,200 miles of dunes. This is the Saharan desert of Titan. It's obviously a place which is very dry, or you wouldn't get dunes.
Ipak, na našim slikama nije bilo znakova, čak ni na slikama s Huygensa, ikakvog većeg, otvorenog tekućeg tijela. Gdje su onda bili? Postalo je još i zanimljivije kada smo pronašli dine. U redu, dakle ovo je naš film ekvatorijalne regije Titana, koji prikazuje te dine. Ovo su dine visoke 100 metara, međusobno odvojene nekoliko kilometara, a nastavljaju se miljama i miljama. Postoje stotine, do 1000 ili 1200 milja dina. Ovo je Sahara na Titanu. Očito je ovo vrlo suho mjesto, inače ne bi bili dina.
So again, it got puzzling that there were no bodies of fluid, until finally, we saw lakes in the polar regions. And there is a lake scene in the south polar region of Titan. It's about the size of Lake Ontario. And then, only a week and a half ago, we flew over the north pole of Titan and found, again, we found a feature here the size of the Caspian Sea. So it seems that the liquids, for some reason we don't understand, or during at least this season, are apparently at the poles of Titan. And I think you would agree that we have found Titan is a remarkable, mystical place. It's exotic, it's alien, but yet strangely Earth-like, and having Earth-like geological formations and a tremendous geographical diversity, and is a fascinating world whose only rival in the solar system for complexity and richness is the Earth itself.
Dakle ponovno, postalo je zagonetno što nema tekućih tijela, dok konačno nismo vidjeli jezera u polarnim regijama. I postoji područje jezera u južnoj polarnoj regiji Titana. Veličine je otprilike jezera Ontario. A onda, samo prije tjedan i pol, preletjeli smo preko sjevernog pola Titana i pronašli i ovdje strukturu veličine Kaspijskoga mora. Dakle, čini se da su tekućine, iz nekog razloga kojeg još ne razumijemo, ili bar tijekom ovog godišnjega doba, očito na polovima Titana. I mislim da ćete se složiti da je Titan osobito, mistično mjesto. Egzotičan je, stran je, ali opet čudesno nalik Zemlji, ima geološke strukture slične Zemljinima i ogromnu geografsku različitost, fascinantan je to svijet čiji je jedini suparnik u Sunčevu sustavu, radi kompleksnosti i bogatstva, upravo Zemlja.
And so now we go onto Enceladus. Enceladus is a small moon, it's about a tenth the size of Titan. And you can see it here next to England, just to show you the size. This is not meant to be a threat. (Laughter). And Enceladus is very white, it's very bright, and its surface is obviously wrecked with fractures. It is a very geologically active body. But the mother lode of discoveries on Enceladus was found at the south pole -- and we're looking at the south pole here -- where we found this system of fractures. And they're a different color because they're a different composition. They are coated. These fractures are coated with organic materials. Moreover, this whole, entire region, the south polar region, has elevated temperatures. It's the hottest place on the planet, on the body. That's as bizarre as finding that the Antarctic on the Earth is hotter than the tropics.
A sada prelazimo na Enkelad. Enkelad je malen mjesec, velik otprilike kao desetina Titana, možete ga vidjeti ovdje pored Engleske. Samo da bih vam pokazala veličinu; ovo nije zamišljeno da predstavlja prijetnju. (Smijeh) Enkelad je vrlo bijel, vrlo svijetao, i njegova površina je očito razorena frakturama, ovo je geološki vrlo aktivno tijelo. Ali glavni izvor otkrića na Enkeladu pronađen je na južnom polu -- ovdje upravo gledamo južni pol -- gdje smo pronašli ovaj sustav fraktura. Različite su boje zato što su različitog sastava. Obložene su. Ove frakture su obložene organskim materijalima. Štoviše, cijela ova regija, regija južnoga pola, ima povišene temperature. To je najtoplije mjesto na planetu, na tom tijelu. To je jednako bizarno kao da otkrijemo da je Antarktika na Zemlji toplija od tropskog pojasa.
And then, when we took additional pictures, we discovered that from these fractures are issuing jets of fine, icy particles extending hundreds of miles into space. And when we color-code this image, to bring out the faint light levels, we see that these jets feed a plume that, in fact, we see, in other images, goes thousands of miles into the space above Enceladus. My team and I have examined images like this, and like this one, and have thought about the other results from Cassini. And we have arrived at the conclusion that these jets may be erupting from pockets of liquid water under the surface of Enceladus.
I onda, kada smo dodatno poslikali, otkrili smo da iz ovih fraktura izlaze mlazovi finih ledenih čestica koji se šire stotinama milja u svemir. I kada obojimo ovu sliku tako da istaknemo slabe nivoe svjetla, vidimo da ti mlazovi snabdijevaju perijanicu koja zapravo, kako vidimo na drugim slikama, ide tisućama milja u svemir iznad Enkelda. Moj tim i ja smo pregledavali slike poput ovih, a uzimali smo u obzir i druge rezultate s Cassinija. I došli smo do zaključka da je moguće da ovi mlazovi eruptiraju iz džepova tekuće vode ispod površine Enkelada.
So we have, possibly, liquid water, organic materials and excess heat. In other words, we have possibly stumbled upon the holy grail of modern day planetary exploration, or in other words, an environment that is potentially suitable for living organisms. And I don't think I need to tell you that the discovery of life elsewhere in our solar system, whether it be on Enceladus or elsewhere, would have enormous cultural and scientific implications. Because if we could demonstrate that genesis had occurred not once, but twice, independently, in our solar system, then that means, by inference, it has occurred a staggering number of times throughout the universe and its 13.7 billion year history.
Dakle, moguće je da imamo tekuću vodu, organske materijale i višak topline. Drugim riječima, moguće je da smo zapravo naišli na Sveti gral istraživanja planeta u moderno doba. Ili drugim riječima, okoliš koji je moguće pogodan za žive organizme. I mislim da vam ne moram niti govoriti da bi otkriće života drugdje u Sunčevu sustavu, bilo na Enkeladu ili drugdje, imalo golema kulturološke i znanstvene implikacije. Zato što kada bismo mogli pokazati da se nastanak života dogodio ne jednom, nego dvaput, neovisno u Sunčevu sustavu, tada bi to značilo, slijedom logičkoga zaključivanja, da se to dogodio nebrojno puno puta u svemiru kroz njegovih 13,7 milijardi godina povijesti.
Right now, Earth is the only planet still that we know is teeming with life. It is precious, it is unique, it is still, so far, the only home we've ever known. And if any of you were alert and coherent during the 1960s -- and we'd forgive you, if you weren't, OK -- you would remember this very famous picture taken by the Apollo 8 astronauts in 1968. It was the first time that Earth was imaged from space, and it had an enormous impact on our sense of place in the universe, and our sense of responsibility for the protection of our own planet.
Trenutno, Zemlja je i dalje jedini poznati planet koji obiluje životom. Dragocjena je, jedinstvena, i dalje je jedini dom kojeg poznajemo. I ako su neki od vas bili na oprezu i razumni tijekom 1960ih -- a opraštamo vam ako niste, u redu -- sjetit ćete se ove slavne slike koju su uslikali astronauti Apolla VIII 1968. Bio je to prvi put da je Zemlja slikana iz svemira, i to je imalo ogroman utjecaj na poimanje našeg mjesta u svemiru, i našu svijest za odgovornost za zaštitu našeg planeta.
Well, we on Cassini have taken an equivalent first, a picture that no human eye has ever seen before. It is a total eclipse of the Sun, seen from the other side of Saturn. And in this impossibly beautiful picture, you see the main rings backlit by the Sun, you see the refracted image of the Sun and you see this ring created, in fact, by the exhalations of Enceladus. But as if that weren't brilliant enough, we can spot, in this beautiful image, sight of our own planet, cradled in the arms of Saturn's rings.
Pa, mi na Cassiniju smo uslikali ekvivalentni prvijenac, fotografiju koju niti jedno ljudsko oko nije vidjelo prije. To je potpuna pomrčina Sunca, gledana s druge strane Saturna. I na ovoj nemoguće lijepoj slici vidite glavne prstene obasjane Suncem straga, vidite refraktiranu sliku Sunca i vidite ovaj prsten stvoren, zapravo, izbacivanjem čestica s Enkelada. Ali kao da ovo nije već dovoljno briljantno, možemo uočiti na ovoj prekrasnoj slici, naš vlastiti planet, u kolijevci Saturnovih prstena.
Now, there is something deeply moving about seeing ourselves from afar, and capturing the sight of our little, blue-ocean planet in the skies of other worlds. And that, and the perspective of ourselves that we gain from that, may be, in the end, the finest reward that we earn from this journey of discovery that started half a century ago. And thank you very much. (Applause)
Da, postoji nešto zaista dirljivo u gledanju nas samih izdaleka, i hvatanju slike našeg malog plavog planeta kroz neba drugih svjetova. I to, i perspektiva nas samih koju dobivamo iz toga, mogla bi biti, naposljetku, najbolja nagrada koju smo stekli ovim putovanjem otkrića koje je počelo prije pola stoljeća. Hvala vam puno. (Pljesak)