ByANDY FLEMING
It's
incredible to think that it's more than fourteen years since the world lost a
most remarkable astronomer, pioneer exobiologist and populariser of science -
Carl Sagan.
A
son of Jewish immigrants to the United States, Sagan was born in Brooklyn, New
York, where he spent his childhood developing an interest in astronomy. A high
achiever, he studied physics at the University of Chicago, gaining a master's
degree in 1956, before being awarded a doctorate there in 1960 in astronomy and
astrophysics. He then lectured at Harvard University until 1968, when a move to
Cornell University in Ithaca, New York beckoned. In 1971 this became a
full-time professorship that included the directorship of the Laboratory for
Planetary Studies. He also took an increasing interest in pioneering
exo-biology and publicising the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
(SETI). During this period, he also became an Associate Director of the Centre
for Radio Physics and Space Research at Cornell, and later was instrumental in
lecturing at Cornell in scepticism and critical thinking.
Such
an academic career would have been amazing in itself, but Sagan had been
heavily involved in the US space program since the 1950s -- including his
celebrated briefings of the Apollo astronauts before their flights to the Moon.
However, of utmost interest to this most talented of scientists was planetary
science and the increasing number of NASA robotic missions to neighbouring
planets in the solar system.
