Carl Sagan, also known as “the astronomer of the people”, was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, author and researcher. He made crucial contributions in popularizing astronomy to the public. He authored over 600 scientific papers and wrote several books about astronomy and natural sciences. He also gained worldwide fame for narrating and writing the popular 1980 television series “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage”.
Did you know this about Carl Sagan?
- A Sagan Unit is a number of at least 4 billion. The Universe is about 3.4 Sagan years old and the Milky Way contains rougly 100 Sagan stars.
- He never actually said his most famous catch-phrase, billions and billions." He said "billions upon billions."
- On Sagan's 33rd birthday NASA launched the Saturn V, the most powerful rocket ever build to the point. Coincidence though.
- In an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, you can see a plaque on Mars dedicated to the Carl Sagan Memorial Station.
- Sagan was among the first scientists to propose that Jupiter's moon Europa might house underground oceans - an idea later indirectly confirmed by the Galileo space probe.
- Stanley Kubrick was unsure how to depict aliens in 2001: A Space Odyssey, so he sought advice from Sagan, who urged Kubrick to not depict them at all. No aliens appear in the movie.
- Five-year-old Sagan attended the 1939 World's Fair and was fascinated by the burial of a time capsule; its was perhaps his earliest inspiration for the Pioneer and Voyager time capsules he helped launch into space as an adult.
- Sagan theoretically predicted the surface temperatures of Venus - later confirmed by the Mariner 2 space probe.
- He was responsible for the gold disc that was attached to the Pioneer 10 space probe, a message sent out in the hope of communicating more about Earth with any intelligent life that may come across Pioneer.
- Sagan was initially opposed to the idea of including Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" on the Voyager Golden Record sent into deep space in 1977, insisting it was "pretty awful". His wife Ann Druyan, convinced him otherwise.
- Carl Sagan published a pro-marijuana essay in 1971 under the pseudonym Mr. X, and later openly advocated for legalization.
- A small asteroid zipping between Mars and Jupiter is named 2709 Sagan.
- His thirteen-part series, Cosmos , co-written with Ann Druyan, has been broadcast in over sixty countries and be seen by more than half a billion people.
- This makes his show the most widely viewed PBS program in history.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”