Astrophysicist
A guide to the immense and the intimate, bringing distant worlds into view while asking us to care for the small one we share.
Astronomer & Science Communicator
Carl Sagan was born in Brooklyn. His curiosity about the stars became a scientific vocation, taking him to the University of Chicago and then into planetary research.
At Cornell, Sagan studied planets and the possibility of life beyond Earth. He also helped shape spacecraft investigations, carrying questions from the classroom into the solar system.
Sagan chaired the committee behind Voyager’s Golden Record. Ann Druyan and fellow collaborators helped assemble sounds, music and images into a portrait of life on Earth.
Written for television with Ann Druyan and Steven Soter, Cosmos brought astronomy into living rooms through stories, demonstrations and a journey across time. The companion book offers another route through its ideas.
Begin here for Sagan’s gift of connecting a large scientific picture with the lives of the people trying to understand it.
Pale Blue Dot turns space exploration into a question about humanity’s future. Sagan died in 1996; his books, recorded voice and working papers preserve both the finished ideas and the labour of making them.
1993 · Annotated manuscript
Follow the handwritten revisions through an early draft of the book.Read manuscript · Free1984 · Working draft
Read the developing text alongside the recording of Sagan’s dictation.Read PDF · FreeLibrary of Congress
Manuscripts, correspondence, images and the making of Cosmos.Explore the archive
Marshall McLuhanThe power of a medium to change a worldview
Alan WattsA sense of belonging to something larger