Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Happy Birthday, Carl Sagan


Today would be Carl Sagan's 77th birthday. He was an American astronomer and popular science writer, known for such works as Cosmos, The Demon Haunted World, and the novel Contact, which was later adapted into a film. But my personal favorite book of his is Pale Blue Dot, from which the above speech was taken. He is referencing this picture:

Picture from www.realscience.us
I don't know how well you'll be able to make it out, but in the line of light on the right-hand side of the picture, there is a little blue dot. That is the Earth, as seen from the Voyager 1 spacecraft 6 billion kilometers away, at the edge of the solar system. This joins another poignant picture of the Earth from space, Earthrise:

Picture from Wikipedia

This one was taken by Apollo 8 crewmember Bill Anders, on December 24, 1968.
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousNovember 10, 2011 at 9:56 AM

    What a nice way to remember Carl Sagan on the anniversary of his birth!

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  2. JackieDecember 8, 2011 at 4:39 PM

    Carl Sagan is awesome! Also, after reading Mee's blog post that describes the main character of Contact, I feel like I might be living in that book. The main character in that book apparently went to MIT for undergrad, then Caltech for grad, and she does radio astronomy! Now I just need to hunt for aliens.

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