Campus & Beyond ‘Cosmos,’ a Pulitzer, and More: Fascinating Facts about Carl Sagan Stories You May Like At Carl Sagan’s Final Resting Place, Admirers Pay Homage Why Early Cornell Students Took a Sepulchral Shortcut With Cornell’s ‘Solar Noon’ Clock, Bill Nye ’77 Aims to Leave a Legacy The astronomer’s legacy can be found on Earth and far beyond—from a record-setting exhibit to an iconic portrait of our planet By Joe Wilensky Noted astronomer Carl Sagan would have turned 90 in 2024. To mark that milestone and honor his legacy, the University and the scientific institute that bears his name hosted a celebration on the Hill in mid-November. (The keynote program can be viewed online.) With those festivities in mind, Cornellians has gathered not quite “billions and billions”—but a plethora—of factoids about the astronomer, who passed away in 1996. Read on for 14 fascinating facts about Sagan—one of Cornell's most famous faculty members, and one of the most effective science communicators of all time! His ‘Cosmos’ made history! Sagan may be best known for the PBS series, an overview of how science and civilization grew up together. The Emmy- and Peabody-award-winning show, co-written by Ann Druyan—Sagan’s wife and frequent collaborator—became the most watched series in public TV history, seen by more than 500 million people in 60 countries. An accompanying book was on the New York Times bestsellers list for 70 weeks. At the time of Sagan’s death in 1996, it was the top-selling science book ever published in English. His ‘billions and billions’ quote originated with a parody! Sagan has long been associated with that intoned, over-enunciated phrase—but did he ever really say it? While he often said “millions” and “billions” when describing galaxies, stars, and planets (emphasizing the “B” in “billions” to distinguish it from “millions”), the famed “billions and billions” phrase originated during a 1980 skit on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show” during the heyday of Sagan’s many appearances there. The famed phrase originated during a 1980 skit on Johnny Carson’s 'Tonight Show' during the heyday of Sagan’s many appearances there. “I once saw [Carson] put on a wig and a corduroy jacket and pretend to be me,” Sagan said years later, “but I no more said [‘billions and billions’] than Sherlock Holmes, in any of the writings of Arthur Conan Doyle, said ‘Elementary, my dear Watson.’” Sagan ultimately gave a wink and nod to the quote in his final book, Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium, published in 1997. A tourist attraction is named in his honor! The Carl Sagan Planet Walk—an outdoor scale model of the solar system, spread over three-quarters of a mile in and around downtown Ithaca—was created in 1997, an initiative of Ithaca’s Sciencenter and supported in part by Cornell’s astronomy department. The 6-foot-high monuments—accurately spaced on a scale of 1:5 billion—stretch from the sun (on the Ithaca Commons pedestrian mall) to Pluto (at a local science museum 1,200 meters away). An obelisk depicting the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter was later added—and in 2012, the Planet Walk got a monument depicting Alpha Centauri, the star closest to the sun. Accurately scaled for distance, it sits at the University of Hawaii, Hilo. The addition expanded the Walk to some 8,000 kilometers, making it the world’s longest exhibit. Joe Wilensky / Cornell UniversityThe starting point on the Ithaca Commons. ProvidedIn his high school yearbook. He was a science fan from early on! Born in Brooklyn in 1934, Sagan was inspired by exhibits at the New York World’s Fair of 1939–40, and by science fiction works like the Under the Moons of Mars books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics, and a double doctorate in astronomy and astrophysics—all from the University of Chicago. Sagan taught at Harvard before coming to Cornell in 1968, becoming a full professor three years later. His license plate name-checked a Martian moon! In a 2006 blog post, Sagan’s son Nick reminisced about his dad, recalling that he drove an orange Porsche 914 with a vanity plate that read “PHOBOS.” “I never asked him, ‘Why Phobos? Why not the other moon, Deimos?’ though I wish I had,” Nick wrote. ProvidedWith son Nick and his astronomically plated Porsche. “As a child I was fascinated by Greek mythology and knew Phobos as a demigod of fear,” he continued. “It’s ironic, because my father was the least fearful person I’ve ever known. Though he worried about the state of the world from time to time, it never stopped him. And when we’d talk about what things might be like in 25, 50, or 100 years, he said he knew there would be difficult challenges ahead, but he believed we were up to the task.” He was responsible for a famously evocative photo of Earth! The Voyager 1 spacecraft had already taken dramatic and breathtaking images never before seen—as it flew past Jupiter two years after its 1977 launch, and Saturn a year later. NASAA “pale blue dot” in the vastness of space. In 1990, as it neared the far edge of our solar system, Sagan conceived the idea of turning its camera backward to take a final photo of the visible solar system—and planet Earth—from 3.7 billion miles out. According to NASA, Sagan knew the picture would render our planet as just a dot of light, but the Voyager team “wanted humanity to see Earth’s vulnerability, and that our home world is just a tiny, fragile speck in the cosmic ocean.” After three exposures were taken (which took weeks to transmit and download), NASA shut down Voyager’s camera to preserve power for its decades-long mission. “Look again at that dot,” Sagan wrote in his 1994 book, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. “That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.” He met with the Dalai Lama! Sagan and the Dalai Lama made deep connections through a series of conversations in the early 1990s. Jon ReisWho wouldn't have wanted to be a fly on the wall for this chat? The spiritual leader, who has a lifelong interest in science, first met Sagan during a visit to Ithaca, home to the Buddhist monastery that’s his seat in North America. Their discussions continued in India and covered God, science, and how science can benefit from religion (and vice versa). Stories You May Like At Carl Sagan’s Final Resting Place, Admirers Pay Homage Why Early Cornell Students Took a Sepulchral Shortcut His Ithaca home was built for a secret society! Sagan’s longtime abode, perched some 30 feet below street level on the edge of Fall Creek Gorge, has its own fame and history. The miniature stone fortress, a 1,200-square-foot structure at 900 Stewart Avenue, at various times has been known as “the Sphinx Head house” and “the Tomb.” Designed to evoke an ancient Egyptian tomb, it originally featured not only blocky limestone walls and carved pillars but one single room, no windows, and only one entrance. It was the headquarters of Sphinx Head, Cornell’s oldest secret honor society. Jennifer InfanteA house with a storied history. Sagan and Druyan purchased the house in 1981 when they returned to Ithaca after “Cosmos” in L.A.; after they moved to a larger home, it was eventually converted into their offices. Druyan still owns it today. “Like Sagan himself, [the building] was visible and flamboyant—and also remote and unapproachable,” William Poundstone wrote in Carl Sagan: A Life in the Cosmos. “In lieu of a moat, the 200-foot plunge to the gorge acted as a guarantor of privacy.” He won a Pulitzer! Sagan was honored for his 1977 nonfiction book, The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence. As the book’s cover blurb describes, the author “takes us on a great reading adventure, offering his vivid and startling insight into the brain of man and beast, the origin of human intelligence, the function of our most haunting legends—and their amazing links to recent discoveries.” In a review, the New York Times called it “a history of the human brain from the Big Bang, 15 billion years ago, to the day before yesterday … It’s a delight.” He produced a (literal) gold record! Sagan played a leading role in NASA’s Mariner, Viking, Voyager, and Galileo expeditions to other planets, and was instrumental in creating the “Golden Record” that was affixed to the twin Voyager spacecrafts. NASAInstructions included—batteries, not so much. The 12-inch, gold-plated copper record contains salutations to the universe, international music, sounds of our planet, and images of life on Earth—in the hope that other life forms may grasp something about our world. Its cover bears a complex diagram showing Earth’s location in space, as well as a pictorial explanation of how to play the disc, whose estimated shelf life could stretch to 5 billion years. To mark the 40th anniversary of the Voyager launches in 2017, a three-box collectors’ set of the record was released on LP. A Cornell-based institute honors his life’s work! In 2015, the Carl Sagan Institute was founded at Cornell, dedicated to the mission of finding life in the cosmos, bringing together astrophysicists, engineers, geologists, biologists, and others in the search for extraterrestrial life. As the institute’s founding director, astronomy professor Lisa Kaltenegger, noted at the time: Sagan was fascinated by the question of whether we're alone in the universe—and what other worlds might be like. Sagan was fascinated by the question of whether we’re alone in the universe—and what other worlds might be like. “This important research not only looks for other worlds like ours, it helps us understand and safeguard our own pale blue dot better," she said. "Finding other, older worlds can also give us a first glimpse into our potential future.” A Big Red research site appeared in the film version of his novel! Contact was based on Sagan’s 1985 sci-fi bestseller; it was directed by Robert Zemeckis and starred Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, and James Woods. The 1997 film, which follows one woman’s search for extraterrestrial life, included scenes filmed at Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory, which the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center at Cornell ran for the National Science Foundation for nearly six decades. Until it was decommissioned in 2020, the facility used a 1,000-foot-diameter radio telescope to study the Earth’s upper atmosphere—and to listen to background sounds of the universe. Cornell UniversityThe telescope was nestled in a natural valley. His wife and longtime collaborator has continued their work! Druyan is an Emmy and Peabody award-winning writer, producer, and director. She co-wrote the original “Cosmos” series and co-produced the movie version of Contact, among many other collaborations with Sagan. Cornell UniversityThe couple in 1994. She has gone on to write and produce numerous other science exhibits and productions, including podcasts and sequels to the “Cosmos” series on the National Geographic Channel. She also serves on the advisory board of the Sagan Institute. His students include another notable science popularizer! “Science Guy” Bill Nye ’77 fondly recalls taking Astronomy 102 with Sagan as an engineering undergrad. (Today, he’s CEO of the Planetary Society—the space interest group that Sagan co-founded in 1980.) Speaking at the 2024 celebration of 150 years of mechanical engineering on the Hill, Nye recalled hearing Sagan talk about details of the Golden Record he was putting together for the Voyager mission. Lindsay France / Cornell UniversityNye during a campus visit. According to Nye, Sagan was planning to include (among numerous audio clips) “Roll Over Beethoven” by Chuck Berry as an example of rock music—but Nye insisted that “Johnny B. Goode” would be the better choice. “I take full credit for that,” Nye said. “That’s why I went to engineering school: to get ‘Johnny B. Goode’ in the cosmos, so that alien entities could enjoy early rock-n-roll.” Top: A “Cosmos”-era portrait. (Rare and Manuscript Collections) Published November 11, 2024 Comments Stuart Pattison, Class of 1964 17 Nov, 2024 “There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits, than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve, and cherish, the pale blue dot. The only home, we’ve ever known.” -Carl Sagan Reply Leave a Comment Cancel replyOnce your comment is approved, your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Class Year Email * Save my name, email, and class year in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ Other stories You may like Alumni With Punk Reunions, Alums from the 1990s Rock On Campus & Beyond By the Deep Blue Sea, an Idyllic Spot for Teaching and Research Cornelliana Cornell Dairy: From Cow to Cone