Carl Sagan
American astronomer
| Date of Birth | : | 09 Nov, 1934 |
| Date of Death | : | 20 Dec, 1996 |
| Place of Birth | : | Brooklyn, New York, United States |
| Profession | : | Author, Astrophysicist, Cosmologist, Astrobiologist, Novelist, Screenwriter, Television Presenter, Voice Actor |
| Nationality | : | American |
Carl Edward Sagan (কার্ল সেগান) was an American astronomer and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by exposure to light. He assembled the first physical messages sent into space, the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, which were universal messages that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find them. He argued in favor of the hypothesis, which has since been accepted, that the high surface temperatures of Venus are the result of the greenhouse effect.
Initially an assistant professor at Harvard, Sagan later moved to Cornell, where he spent most of his career. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books. He wrote many popular science books, such as The Dragons of Eden, Broca's Brain, Pale Blue Dot and The Demon-Haunted World. He also co-wrote and narrated the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which became the most widely watched series in the history of American public television: Cosmos has been seen by at least 500 million people in 60 countries. A book, also called Cosmos, was published to accompany the series. Sagan also wrote a science-fiction novel, published in 1985, called Contact, which became the basis for a 1997 film of the same name. His papers, comprising 595,000 items, are archived in the Library of Congress.
Sagan was a popular public advocate of skeptical scientific inquiry and the scientific method; he pioneered the field of exobiology and promoted the search for extra-terrestrial intelligent life (SETI). He spent most of his career as a professor of astronomy at Cornell University, where he directed the Laboratory for Planetary Studies. Sagan and his works received numerous awards and honors, including the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, the National Academy of Sciences Public Welfare Medal, the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction (for his book The Dragons of Eden), and (for Cosmos: A Personal Voyage), two Emmy Awards, the Peabody Award, and the Hugo Award. He married three times and had five children. After developing myelodysplasia, Sagan died of pneumonia at the age of 62 on December 20, 1996.
Early Years
Carl Edward Sagan was born on November 9, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York, the first of two children. Sagan’s interest in astronomy began early on, and when he was five, his mother sent him to the library to find books on the stars. Soon after, his parents took him to the New York World’s Fair, where visions of the future piqued his interest further. He also quickly became a fan of the prevalent 1940s science-fiction stories in pulp magazines and was drawn in by reports of flying saucers that suggested extraterrestrial life.
Sagan graduated high school in 1951 at age 16 and headed to the University of Chicago, where experiments he conducted drove his fascination with the possibility of alien life. In 1955, Sagan graduated with a B.A. in physics, and he received his masters a year later. Four years later, Sagan moved to California after obtaining a Ph.D. in astronomy and astrophysics, landing at the University of California, Berkeley, as a fellow in astronomy. There, he helped a team develop an infrared radiometer for NASA’s Mariner 2 robotic probe.
Further Work With NASA and Fringe Science
The 1960s found Sagan at Harvard University and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, where his work centered on the physical conditions of the planets, particularly those of Venus and Jupiter. In 1968, Sagan became the director of Cornell University’s Laboratory for Planetary Studies, and three years later, he became a full professor. Working again with NASA, Sagan helped choose where the Viking probes would touch down on Mars and helped craft the messages from Earth that were sent out with the Pioneer and Voyager probes sent beyond our solar system.
While still in his 30s, Sagan began speaking out on a range of fringe issues, issues that would gain him much attention, such as the feasibility of interstellar flight, the idea that aliens visited the Earth thousands of years ago and that creatures resembling “gas bags” live high in Jupiter's atmosphere. He also testified before Congress during this period about UFOs, which had captured the minds of the newspaper-reading populous, and proposed terraforming Venus into a habitable world.
The Rare Celebrity Scientist
In 1968, now a well-known quantity in the scientific realm, Sagan briefly served as a consultant on the Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey, although a clash of personalities ensured the gig was short-lived. In the 1970s and 1980s, Sagan was the most well-known scientist in the United States, helped in no small part by the books he wrote. Works such as The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective (1973), Other Worlds (1975), The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence (1977; Pulitzer Prize winner) and his 1985 novel, Contact (made into a film starring Jodie Foster in 1997), all grabbed the attention of the scientific community and general audiences.
Later Career and 'Cosmos'
In 1980, Sagan co-founded the Planetary Society, an international nonprofit organization focusing on space exploration, and also launched the hugely influential TV series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which he wrote and hosted. He also wrote a companion book of the same name to accompany the series. Another of his famous works, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), was the sequel to Cosmos and was inspired by the famous Pale Blue Dot photograph, which shows Earth as a mere speck in space. Sagan uses the Voyager 1 probe photo as a leaping-off point to discuss humanity's place in the vast universe and his vision of the future.
Sagan used his status, both as a celebrity and scientist, to further his political goals, and he undertook a campaign for nuclear disarmament and was a vocal opponent of President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. In 1983, he co-wrote a paper that introduced the concept of “nuclear winter” followed the next year by his co-authored book The Cold and the Dark: The World After Nuclear War.
Over the course of Sagan’s career, he was honored several times, notably receiving NASA’s Distinguished Public Service Medal (1977, 1981) and the National Academy of Sciences’ Public Welfare Medal (1994), among dozens of others.
He died of pneumonia, a complication of the bone-marrow disease myelodysplasia, on December 20, 1996, at age 62. Eighteen years later, Cosmos was brought back to TV, this time with Neil DeGrasse Tyson taking on hosting duties and getting a whole new generation of viewers excited about what lies beyond the boundaries of Earth's atmosphere.
Death
After suffering from myelodysplasia for two years and receiving three bone marrow transplants from his sister, Sagan died from pneumonia at the age of 62 at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle on December 20, 1996. He was buried at Lake View Cemetery in Ithaca, New York.
Awards and honors
- Annual Award for Television Excellence—1981—Ohio State University—PBS series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage
- Apollo Achievement Award—National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal—National Aeronautics and Space Administration (1977)
- Emmy—Outstanding Individual Achievement—1981—PBS series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage
- Emmy—Outstanding Informational Series—1981—PBS series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage
- Fellow of the American Physical Society–1989
- Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal—National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Helen Caldicott Leadership Award – Awarded by Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament
- Hugo Award—1981—Best Dramatic Presentation—Cosmos: A Personal Voyage
- Hugo Award—1981—Best Related Non-Fiction Book—Cosmos
- Hugo Award—1998—Best Dramatic Presentation—Contact
- Humanist of the Year—1981—Awarded by the American Humanist Association
- American Philosophical Society—1995—Elected to membership.
- In Praise of Reason Award—1987—Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
- Isaac Asimov Award—1994—Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
- John F. Kennedy Astronautics Award—1982—American Astronautical Society
- Special non-fiction Campbell Memorial Award—1974—The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective
- Joseph Priestley Award—"For distinguished contributions to the welfare of mankind"
- Klumpke-Roberts Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific—1974
- Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement—1975
- Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Medal—Awarded by the Soviet Cosmonauts Federation
- Locus Award 1986—Contact
- Lowell Thomas Award—The Explorers Club—75th Anniversary
- Masursky Award—American Astronomical Society
- Miller Research Fellowship—Miller Institute (1960–1962)
- Oersted Medal—1990—American Association of Physics Teachers
- Peabody Award—1980—PBS series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage
- Le Prix Galabert d'astronautique—International Astronautical Federation (IAF)
- Public Welfare Medal—1994—National Academy of Sciences
- Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction—1978—The Dragons of Eden
- Science Fiction Chronicle Award—1998—Dramatic Presentation—Contact
- UCLA Medal–1991
- Inductee to International Space Hall of Fame in 2004
- Named the "99th Greatest American" on June 5, 2005, Greatest American television series on the Discovery Channel
- Named an honorary member of the Demosthenian Literary Society on November 10, 2011
- New Jersey Hall of Fame—2009—Inductee.
- Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) Pantheon of Skeptics—April 2011—Inductee
- Grand-Cross of the Order of Saint James of the Sword, Portugal (November 23, 1998)
- Honorary Doctor of Science (Sc.D.) degree from Whittier College in 1978.
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