Happy Carl Sagan Day!

A little clip from Carl Sagan's Cosmos, part 8: Journeys in Space and Time, in which Sagan discusses the immense distances that most people, many astronomers included, probably don't really appreciate. You have to really stop and think about it! Deep space. Deep time. Deep wonder.

Whilst some of the minor numerical details are out of date, the ideas have not changed. Astronomy moves very quickly, but in many ways 'Cosmos' underscores that the grand principles of the Universe as revealed to us by science need little revision over the decades. They are founded on evidence, and this is what gives us confidence in the reality of their remarkable, and beautiful implications.

Hope you all have a great Carl Sagan Day and find some time to watch some of 'Cosmos' or read any of his many seminal essays and books. We are star-stuff; a way for the Cosmos to know itself.

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Education

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• Happy Carl Sagan Day

[SagaWrath]

I saw a Star Trek episode where they flew past Mars and it showed a giant plaque with Carl Sagan's name on it, on the surface of Mars. I thought... What a great Idea for when we colonize that planet. A giant tribute to Carl Sagan.

After doing research just now apparently Nick Sagan (Carl's son) wrote some episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise and wrote the same one I watched lol.

[AndromedasWake]

@SagaWrath There's a crater on Mars named after him. It's in the Ares Vallis region where Pathfinder landed (the mission launched just 16 days before Sagan died.)

It seems to be a pretty good place to look for evidence of life too!

[Skepticktok]

Extraordinary claim: Carl Sagan was awesome.

Extraordinary proof: This video!

[MrGaddafikiller]

for all we know every star (not inculeding the sun) might have been destoyed ages ago!

[ult1m4t30wn4g3]

Happy birthday Carl! RIP

[JackeShanTwo]

Next Carl Sagan day is next saturday!

[LordRakton]

I love Carl Sagan so much! I'm deeply disappointed in Netflix for removing Cosmos as a playable feature.

[drkraid]

m31 is a fairly unromantic name for our cosmic sister, maybe that's why we call it andromeda these days

[simsimaz2]

are you ever going to make another video?

[Sadochrist]

I like the carp noctem on your main page, I can't wait to get a good telescope. Can any one here answer me these questions? People use uranium to boil water in their reactors to make electricity from steam yet the radiation is some sort of energy so could it be collected directly instead of converting it to steam? also is there a way to transmit radiation through a route such as a wire or some other way, (capillary like vacuum tubes maybe), as we do with electricity? if so how, if not why not?

[Darkdude929]

Carl Sagan is a hero. He warned that the 21st Century would show the rising threat of New Age superstition, and with everything from the re-emergence of homeopathy to the anti-vaccination lobbiers to the 2012 conspiracists coming about since, I say with grief that he was correct :(

[petrino]

@cukasi if only holidays actually had an effect on intelligence. sagan would punch me for saying that :P

[CecilDark]

The universe bless and spread Carl around we need his insite more than ever.