Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco shows images from the Cassini voyage to Saturn, focusing on its largest moon, Titan, and on frozen Enceladus, which seems to shoot jets of ice.

Carolyn Porco shares exciting new findings from the Cassini spacecraft's recent sweep of one of Saturn's moons, Enceladus. Samples gathered from the moon's icy geysers hint that an ocean under its surface could harbor life.

Is Earth really the only life-sustaining planet? These speakers think there might just be something or someone else out there -- and urge us to keep looking for it.

As the leader of the Imaging Team on the Cassini mission to Saturn, Carolyn Porco interprets and shares the pictures coming back from this fascinating planet, its rings and its moons.

For those times when living a life far beyond our planet looks a little too appealing.

Hungry for inspiration but short on time? Watch these snack-sized talks.

Travel across the universe (or is it universes?) to see stunning images of Saturn's rings, hear haunting sounds from distant black holes and catch an infectious sense of wonder about galaxies far, far away.

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the moon. Moon Day is held every July 20 to commemorate this momentous feat. 43 years later, humanity is still looking to the sky, mesmerized by lunar bodies. However, it is not just Earth’s moon we’re studying anymore. With better satellites and spacecrafts we know more about th...

(TED is on its annual two-week vacation. During the break, we’re posting playlists from the TEDTalks archive. We’ll be back with new talks Monday!) The wonderful thing about the universe is not just how big it is, but how every time we look into it we find something new and extraordinary. Here are four talks about the vastness of space, a...

In TIME’s end-of-the-year “New Space Discoveries” special, the magazine picked “The 25 Most Influential People in Space” -- from telescope innovators to planet hunters. Of those included in the list, we couldn’t help but notice that five had given TED Talks. Below, check out what each had to say on the TED stage. 1. Andrea Ghez on “the h...

“Science: It’s a Girl Thing!” That’s what is claimed in a goofy public service announcement, made by the European Commission, which aims to convince young women that science careers are in fact “cool.” Naturally, for a few days the Twittersphere has been atwitter over the very pink ad, which instead shows that girls can simultaneously do scie...

Today may go down in history as The Day the Earth Smiled. Or, at least, that is what TED speaker Carolyn Porco (watch her talk) is hoping. Today from 9:27 to 9:42 pm GMT, the Cassini spaceship -- an unmanned ship studying Saturn -- will be taking a photograph of Saturn and its ring system. And because of the angle of the photo, Earth will be...

Yves Rossy (watch his talk) is known as the “Jetman,” because he zips through the air on a pair of jet-powered wings. Last week, he flew around Japan’s Mount Fuji. Nine times. And then spoke to Business Insider about it. Twitter co-founder Evan Williams (watch his talk) talks to The New York Times about his most recent venture, Medium -- ...

In her 2007 TED Talk, "This is Saturn," planetary scientist Carolyn Porco blew some minds with images taken by Cassini, the robot spaceship launched in October 1997 to study and photograph Saturn and its accompanying moons. Gleaning "oohs" and "aahs" from the assembled TED audience, she concluded with a stunning shot of a backlit picture of ...

Today, Felisa Wolfe-Simon and scientists at NASA announced the discovery of a new form of bacteria that uses arsenic as part of its basic biology, something previously thought impossible. The bacteria appears to use the arsenic to replace phosphorous -- possibly even in its DNA. Phosphorous was considered to be essential for all life, and so if ...

New York's Times Square regularly fills up for great public events, the crowd chanting and cheering. Rarely, however, do they chant, "Science! Science! Science!" as they did last night. An extraordinary number of people came out at 1:31am to watch the landing of Curiosity, NASA's new Mars rover. The TED Blog decided it would be fun to wat...

Several members of the TED community had notable news this week. Below, some highlights: In 2010, Eben Bayer introduced a mushroom-based material that grows from agri-waste into any shape you want. It’s been used mainly as a packing material up to now, but this week, MoMA’s PS1 in Queens unveiled a soaring, sunny tower built of mushroom brick...

Over the past week, we’ve noticed a lot of fascinating TED-related news items. Here, some highlights: Explorer Ben Saunders (watch either of his two TED Talks) is about to set off for his biggest expedition yet — a trek to the South Pole, entirely on foot. The Telegraph reports that he and Tarka L’Herpenière are making the 1,800 mile journey in...

As usual, the TED community has lots of news to share this week. Below, some highlights. Farewell to Cassini -- and here’s to the continuing search for life beyond Earth. In mid-August, PBS released a digital short featuring Carolyn Porco, a planetary scientist and the leader of the imaging team for the Cassini mission to Saturn. In the short...

Did you go outside and smile for the camera last Friday, like Carolyn Porco (watch her talk) asked you to, while the Cassini probe snapped a photo of Jupiter with Earth in the background? In this hyper-detailed post from Diary of Numbers, the author calculates the odds that one of your photons is in the shot. And you may be thinking: Oh, ...

Humanity's future is the future of cities. Explore the crowded favelas, greened-up blocks and futuristic districts that could shape the future of cities -- and take a profane, hilarious side trip to the suburbs.

From tech to self-help via poetry, fiction and graphic novels, here are the books you need to read. What’s the one book you're always thrilled to discover that someone else has read? We posed that question to TED speakers -- and, well, they geeked out, offering us a list of hidden gems that wouldn’t typically crop up on a holiday shopping list....

For the last 12 years, Carter Emmart has been coordinating the efforts of scientists, artists and programmers to build a complete 3D visualization of our known universe. He demos this stunning tour and explains how it's being shared with facilities around the world.

Bill Stone, a maverick cave explorer who has plumbed Earth's deepest abysses, discusses his efforts to mine lunar ice for space fuel and to build an autonomous robot for studying Jupiter's moon Europa.

Carolyn Porco is a planetary explorer & scientist known for her work on the Voyager mission during the 1980s and as the leader of the imaging team on the now-completed Cassini mission at Saturn. She has co-authored more than 125 scientific papers on a variety of subjects in planetary science and astronomy. Carolyn played instrumental roles i...