Carl Sagan was an American astronomer and science popularizer known for his television series Cosmos, which reached 600 million people in over 60 countries. He was a proponent of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and a founder of the field of exobiology. Sagan began his career at the University of Chicago and later worked for the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and Cornell University. He made a major scientific discovery about Venus and popularized the idea of hospitable extraterrestrial environments on Saturn’s moon Titan and Jupiter’s moon Europa. Sagan’s legacy includes his television show and his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Dragons of Eden.
Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996) was an American astronomer and science popularizer. Through his 1980 television series Cosmos, which reached 600 million people in over 60 countries, he inspired an entire generation to take a greater interest in astronomy and science in general. Cosmos was the most popular PBS series of all time. Carl Sagan was a proponent of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), a founder of the field of exobiology, and a champion of secular humanism, widely seen as an alternative to religion.
Carl Sagan began his career at the University of Chicago, where he majored in physics, astronomy and astrophysics, obtaining a PhD in 1960. Between 1962 and 1968, he went to work for the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge , Massachusetts. He also lectured annually at Harvard University during this period. In 1968, he moved to Cornell University, becoming a full professor in 1971. From 1972 to 1981, Carl Sagan was Associate Director of Cornell’s Center for Radio Physics and Space Research. From the 1950s and throughout this period, Sagan worked as a consultant to NASA.
Carl Sagan’s first major scientific discovery came in the early 1960s, when he analyzed the radio waves reflected by the planet Venus and came to the conclusion that the planet was dry and hot. At the time, it was commonly thought that Venus’s thick clouds hid a mild and perhaps even habitable world. In 1962, the Mariner 2 spacecraft made a flyby of Venus and measured its surface temperature at 500°C (932°F), hot enough to melt lead, and Sagan’s conclusions were validated.
Carl Sagan was the primary popularizer of the idea that Saturn’s moon Titan and Jupiter’s moon Europa may have surface or subsurface oceans and could be hospitable to hardy extraterrestrial microbes. Recently, Titan has been discovered to have several large hydrocarbon lakes on its surface, some larger than the Great Lakes. It has been discovered that there is no surface ocean on Europa, but missions are underway to send a probe to investigate the possibility of a subsurface ocean with ice-penetrating radar.
The most memorable part of Sagan’s legacy is undoubtedly his television show, which touched on a range of topics: astronomy, space travel, enlightenment, science fiction, and many more. In 1977, Carl Sagan published Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence, which won a Pulitzer Prize and demonstrated Sagan’s knowledge in areas outside of astronomy.
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