Astronomer, Scientist, Teacher
Born: Nov. 9, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York
Grew Up In: Rahway, New Jersey
Died: Dec. 20, 1996, in Seattle, Washington
New Jersey Hall of Fame, Class of 2009: Education & Science
It was fitting that Time magazine should dub Carl Sagan the “Showman of Science.” Sagan was that rare individual who matched a giant intellect with an entertainer’s charisma and communication skills.
Sagan grew up in working-class Brooklyn, the only son of a Ukrainian-born garment-worker father and a housewife mother. Childhood visits to the neighborhood library and the Hayden Planetarium fed the young Sagan’s early curiosity about the natural world. At 14, his family moved to Rahway, where he was a straight-A student and president of the chemistry club at Rahway High School. At graduation, his fellow students voted him “most likely to succeed.”
By his junior year in high school, Sagan—fascinated by the mysteries of the cosmos–decided on astronomy as a career. He enrolled in the University of Chicago, where he was an honors student and earned a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts and a second degree in physics. He went on to earn a master’s in physics and a doctorate in astronomy and astrophysics, both at Chicago. He continued his studies under a fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley.
In 1963, Sagan joined the faculty at Harvard University as an assistant professor and researcher, but eventually moved to Cornell University, where he settled in for nearly 30 years, rising to a full professorship and directing the school’s Laboratory for Interplanetary Studies.
Sagan was associated with NASA from the beginning of America’s space program in the late 1950s. Among his numerous projects, he arranged experiments on many of the robotic spacecraft missions that explored the solar system, and served as an advisory to the Apollo astronauts before their flights to the moon. His insights about Venus, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars advanced NASA’s understanding of the atmospheric and surface conditions on those planets and several of their moons.
Starting in 1980, Sagan emerged as a pop-culture figure as co-writer and narrator of the hugely popular 13-part PBS television series “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.” The series, seen by hundreds of millions of viewers around the world, shed light on a wide range of subjects, including the origins of life. Sagan also wrote a book, “Cosmos,” to accompany the series. He already was the author of several best-sellers, including “The Dragons of Eden,” which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1977. Other popular books by Sagan include “Pale Blue Dot” (a sequel to “Cosmos”) and the science-fiction novel “Contact,” the basis for the 1997 film of the same name.
Sagan’s ability to explain complicated scientific concepts endeared him to the general public. He did not hesitate to use his celebrity status to address provocative or controversial subjects. He advocated for nuclear disarmament and was a critic of President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, which he believed would hamper efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons. Focusing on the cosmos, he was an outspoken proponent for the search for extraterrestrial life.
Sagan published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was editor, author or co-author (sometimes with his third wife, Ann Druyan) of more than 20 books. He won a constellation of awards, including two Emmys and a Peabody for the “Cosmos” series; three Hugo (science fiction) Awards; a Helen Caldicott Leadership Award for his work on nuclear disarmament; and various awards for his work in science, including a NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal and a National Academy of Sciences Public Welfare Medal. He was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 2004.