Impact case study database

As a prominent member of the Cassini probe imaging team, Murray “has joint credit for all images taken by Cassini's cameras,” says Cassini Project Scientist Linda Spilker of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who was responsible for the mission’s scientific goals [5.1]. “He was directly responsible for designing 12% of the more than 400,000 images taken by Cassini.” These include those relating to Saturn’s ring system, and to the Grand Finale [3.1]. These images are now ubiquitous throughout popular culture.

Driving engaging journalism through iconic images and unique UK-based expertise

Murray’s expertise and scientific outputs enabled the production of new media content that would not have been possible otherwise. Murray was Cassini’s UK scientific representative and labelled “the only UK-based Cassini imaging expert” by BBC Science Correspondent Jonathan Amos [5.2], regularly acting as a personable and authoritative interviewee to facilitate new journalistic output. “I cannot illustrate my stories about Saturn without using Cassini images. Murray’s knowledgeable explanations and insight have enabled me to enhance the presentation of the images with a high level of scientific accuracy,” corroborates Mr. Amos, who covered the discovery of Peggy (an object spotted in Saturn’s rings by Murray, and nicknamed after Murray’s mother-in-law). Mr Amos continues, “This would not be possible without Murray’s involvement. Murray’s research allows us to convey high quality science, with the type of human-interest angle that draws people in” [5.2].

Rebecca Morelle, the Global Science Correspondent for BBC News (which reaches 487 million people per week across its television, radio and online formats), seconds Amos’ comments, also calling Cassini’s Grand Finale “the scientific highlight of 2017” and going on to say that “We frequently interview Prof. Murray when putting together pieces about Cassini, Saturn and planetary science. His passion and ability to translate complicated science into something the general public will understand make him stand out. His research expertise brought stories to life and enabled me to provide exciting, informative content in a way that would not be possible without his contribution” [5.3]. Murray continually facilitated wider engagement with his work and Cassini via 23 radio and television appearances from November 2013 onwards, further enabling the creation of original content by platforms reaching a potential weekly audience of hundreds of millions [ie BBC World News (weekly audience: 112,000,000), BBC News (weekly audience: 468,200,000), BBC World Service (weekly audience: 279,000,000), BBC Radio Scotland (weekly audience: 825,000), Radio 4’s Today Programme (weekly audience: 7,170,000), BBC One O’Clock News, BBC Radio 4’s Inside Science, ITV 6 O’Clock News, ITV’s Good Morning Britain, and Channel 5 News]. Specific comments on these news media directly reference Murray's involvement and impact: “Not just NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) too. UK's Dr Murray as one of the lead scientists. Fantastic work and amazing results” and “Peggy! Brilliant. Well spotted Sir! The universe is so fascinating. Every day more amazing things are discovered” [5.4].

Influencing creative practice and enabling unique creative output

As emphasised by Jonathan Amos, Cassini’s images – which required Murray’s expertise and instrumentation co-design to obtain – brought a “step change” and “have rapidly become the new standard” for visuals of Saturn [5.2]. The images have inspired artists and musicians to create new artefacts:

The 'Cassini’s Journey' painting series by Makiko Nakamura (John Martin Gallery, London, May 2019) is based on Murray’s images [5.5]. An illustration of water geysers on Enceladus is included in the 2020 Royal Mail stamp collection “ Visions of the Universe”. The illustration is on a 65p 2^nd class stamp. This collection credits Cassini’s cameras, which Murray played a key role in developing and maintaining, for revealing the geysers, and highlights the fact that a British astronomer contributed to the discovery (otherwise, the geysers would not have been featured) [5.6].

Additionally, Murray collaborated with composer Yazz Ahmed on a piece featuring spiky broken chords and arrhythmic explorations inspired by Cassini images of hexagonal features on Saturn’s surface. This formed part of a suite commemorating 100 years of Holst’s ‘The Planets’. ‘The Planets ’ is a seven-movement orchestral suite in which each movement is named after a planet of the solar system, inspired by astrology and Roman mythology rather than astronomy. Ahmed, mentored by Murray and using Cassini data was tasked with writing a new movement for the suite, this time informed by astronomy and physics. The suite was performed by the Ligeti Quartet on a frequently sold-out UK planetarium tour in a show that the Guardian called “dizzying and smartly staged” in its four-star review [5.7]. A total of 6 performances were given to a total audience of approximately 650 people. Ahmed reports that “the beauty of Murray's work, and his detailed explanations of how Saturn actually works, allowed me to create a unique piece that really does represent the astronomy involved. I could not have done this without his involvement.” Furthermore, the “fascinating and productive” process of collaborating with Murray led Ahmed to develop a new strand to her creative practice: “The success of the resulting piece has furthered my interest in collaborating with scientists. Following the success of Saturn, I accepted a commission by the Open University to create a piece inspired by the Moon.” [5.8]

Murray’s Cassini images have been used to create new products capable of inspiring, engaging, educating, and entertaining the public:

• A 2015 YouTube video entitled “11 Years of Cassini Saturn Photos in 3 hrs 48 min,” created by Jon Keegan of the Wall Street Journal using Murray’s research and 341,805 Cassini images, has been viewed over 3,500,000 times. The video has attracted over 1,800 comments and 13,000 likes.

• A dedicated Horizon documentary on Saturn was produced based on Cassini’s findings. The average Horizon viewership is approximately 1,700,000. In 2018, the documentary was nominated for a Sir Arthur Clarke Award ‘for a highly engaging documentary showcasing the story of this fascinating mission and its discoveries. This is a “must watch”, receiving praise not only from those with an active interest in space, but also those who wouldn’t normally engage with space’ [5.9].

• The images were used in Amazon Prime’s ‘The Grand Tour’ to illustrate the ‘space age design’ of the featured Aston Martin. The series attracts a viewership of approximately 1,500,000.

• Cassini images regularly featured in Prof. Brian Cox’s record-breaking sell-out international stage show ‘Brian Cox Live’ to show the fragility of the Earth, a mere speck as viewed from Saturn. Annually, Cox performs to over 150,000 people.

• The images are also included in at least 68 prominent stock image collections (such as Alamy, Reuters, Getty Images and National Geographic).

Inspiring and informing the public thus driving participation in discussion and debate about astronomy research

Figure 1: The Day the Earth smiled. Reprinted from NASA, Cassini. NASA. Copyright [2013] by NASA.

Murray’s images, including 'The Day the Earth Smiled’ (Figure 1), named Cassini’s “most iconic image mosaic” by Cassini Project Scientist Linda Spilker [5.1], have become the go-to representations of Saturn in popular culture. An analysis of 5,645 posts from the social media site Reddit shows that 18% of all image posts on Saturn cite Cassini [5.4].

Cassini images have inspired and informed the public and driven participation in debate and discussion about astronomy:

• Page views for Wikipedia’s pages on Saturn spiked by a factor of over 9 during the Grand Finale as the engagement with widespread media coverage of Cassini drove audiences to seek out further information.

• On Twitter, there were over 287,000 retweets relating to “Saturn Cassini” in 2017, 9.5 times higher than the mean in the preceding three years.

• New posts related to Cassini on Reddit, a community discussion site with 330,000,000 users, peaked in 2017 coinciding with the mission Grand Finale. The posts with the most “upvotes” conveyed inspiration and wonder (eg “amazing” and “pictures don’t even look real”) and indicated informed discussion and sharing of information among the public (multiple posts with >10,000 upvotes and >1,000 comments).

• Cassini science has also driven a sustained increase in engagement with Saturn-related content, with weekly posts increasing from a baseline of 200 to 800 after the peak in 2017.

• Cassini science has informed discussions in communities outside of typical science channels. The top 20 sub-groups for discussions about Cassini on Reddit include nine focused on general photography and general interest posts. In 2019–2020 there has been an average of five posts a week, even on advanced topics such as the moon Enceladus.

• An analysis of 12,300 YouTube comments on Cassini videos reveals debate over topics such as (i) the nature and structure of Saturn’s rings (one of Murray’s specialisms), (ii) why the Cassini mission flew into Saturn and the proof that it did so and (iii) the quality and nature of the images and instruments. Murray’s research and images, present in every video, form crucial reference points in these discussions. Example comments include “Saturn has moons between its rings that produce ripples in the rings through gravity...interesting!”; “How did they video it being destroyed?” and “Cassini’s speed is the reason these particular photos are only in greyscale and low resolution on this pass ”.

Thus, through his co-production of Cassini images and wider expertise in Saturn’s system and celestial mechanics, Murray has directly driven the creation of new cultural artefacts and engaging journalistic output, and increased public engagement and debate.