The man who popularized the science of the universe: Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan, an astronomer, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, writer, and one of the pioneers who popularized science, was born on November 9, 1934 in New York to a Jewish family. Carl Sagan's father, Samuel Sagan, works as a switchman in a garment factory, and his mother, Rachel Molly Gruber, is a housewife.

When he was only five years old, his father taught him the place of zero in arithmetic, that there is no such thing as the greatest number, and the names of big numbers. When little Carl wanted to write down the numbers, he was the one who found wrapping paper for him because there was no paper. In the same year, his parents take him to the New York World's Fair. Sagan describes that fair as follows: “What I saw there seemed to herald a wonderful future that would be the product of science and high technology.”

Sagan writes in his book The Demon-Haunted World – Science as a Candle in the Dark: “Neither my mother nor my father were scientists. They knew almost nothing about science. However, while simultaneously encouraging me to be skeptical and inquisitive, they taught me the two basic thought patterns of the scientific method that don't get along. My family lived only one step beyond poverty. But when I told them I wanted to be an astronomer, they gave me an immeasurable support. Moreover, an astronomer's knowledge of what he was doing was almost nil. Even after thinking everything through, they didn't even try to inculcate an idea that it would be better for me to be a doctor or a lawyer.”

“I have always been grateful to my teachers in the 1950s and wanted them to know how I appreciated each and every one of them. But when I look back, I see that I got the most basic information not from my high school or even university teachers, but from my parents, who knew nothing about science, in that distant 1939 year.”

He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1955 with a bachelor's degree in physics and received his master's certificate a year later. Sagan is also the president of his university's astronomy club and one of the basketball team players. He also does his doctoral studies in astronomy and astrophysics at the same university. He taught astronomy at the University of California from 1960 to 1962. He works at Berkeley and in 1962 at Harvard University's Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

His early work is on the physical conditions of the planets, focusing specifically on the atmospheres of Venus and Jupiter. Sagan, with his studies with radio waves, shows that the temperature on Venus is 500 degrees Celsius, and explains that it is difficult to find water there. Sagan sparks worldwide interest when the Mariner 2 spacecraft passes near Venus in 1962, proving that the surface temperature is 500 degrees.

Sagan comes up with many ideas. The fact that aliens visited Earth thousands of years ago suggests that UFOs do indeed exist and that Venus is a habitable planet similar to Earth. Sagan shows that a mixture of amino acids and nucleic acids, the two main components of life, by combining some chemicals, can be created by exposing them to ultraviolet rays. In other words, it is possible to produce two basic building blocks such as amino acids and nucleic acids in a laboratory environment. In this way, Sagan believes that extraterrestrial life definitely exists. It becomes popular when television programs begin to explain these topics in a way that the public can understand. The university does not welcome Sagan, who is a professor at Harvard, to appear on television instead of concentrating on research. When his permanent appointment at Harvard was disapproved, Sagan transferred to Cornell University in 1968. He became director of Cornell University's Planetary Research Laboratory in 1968, and a professor three years later.

Carl Sagan made his second marriage to artist and writer Linda Salzman on April 6, 1968. The couple created the illustration of the Pioneer plate, co-produced with Voyager Golden Record, and they co-wrote the book Murmurs of the Earth. Their only child, Nick, was born in 1970. This marriage also ended in divorce in 1981.

Sagan successfully pursues his space studies at Cornell and soon grows in popularity. Sagan explains for the first time that Saturn's moon Titan is composed of liquids and gases. He also speculates that the color of this satellite is reddish due to some organic molecules on its surface. NASA sends the spacecraft Pioneer 10 in 1972 and Pioneer 11 in 1973 to go out of the Solar System. Sagan advises on this project and places plaques on these spacecraft that give information about the earth and people. The plaques are made of aluminum and covered with gold. Later in 1977, the spacecraft Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were sent into space to leave the Solar System. Sagan also ensures that a gold plaque is placed on the Voyager spacecraft. The content of which is determined by a committee under the chairmanship of Carl Sagan, 116 different pictures, various natural sounds, music selected according to different ages and cultures, and sounds consisting of messages in morse code are recorded on gold records. Some of these recordings are: greetings from every language in the world, animal sounds, the song Across The Universe by The Beatles, three symphonies by J. S. Bach, simple messages and illustrations showing the earth's place and distance in space. On these spacecrafts, the written message of US President Jimmy Carter, addressing if there are creatures living in the depths of space, is also placed.

Writers Ann Druyan and Carl Sagan meet and fall in love with the project team, who decided what the contents of the records decided to be placed inside the Discover spacecraft, which was sent into space in the 1970s and is now out of the Solar system. If one day it falls into the hands of aliens, when it comes to the final stage of these recordings, which were prepared to have an idea about the human race, Ann Druyan goes to a hospital and, while thinking about her love for Carl Sagan, puts the recorded brain waves among the records that will be sent to space.

“Our story began in 1974 at a dinner party hosted by Nora Ephron in New York. I remember how handsome Carl was with his shirt sleeves rolled up and his dazzling smile. We talked about baseball and capitalism, and I was excited to be able to make him laugh so recklessly. However, Carl was married and I was with another man. We were getting together with our spouses. There was a rapprochement between the four of us and we started working together. Sometimes Carl and I were alone and there was an exciting, electric atmosphere. But neither of us showed our true feelings to each other. We couldn't even think of that. In the early spring of 1977, Carl was invited by NASA to form the committee that would determine the content of a sound recording record that would be placed on the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft. After the two spacecraft had completed their major expedition to observe the outermost planets and moons of the Solar system, they would be gravity-launched out of the Solar system. Thus, the opportunity arose to send a message to possible creatures of other worlds and times. This message would be far more comprehensive than the plate that Carl and his wife, Linda Salzman, and astronomer Frank Drake placed on the Pioneer 10 spacecraft. While that plate was a pioneer, it was basically like a car plate. The recording to be put on Voyager 1 would include greetings from sixty languages ​​and whale tongues, an audio commentary on evolution, 116 pictures about life on Earth, and ninety minutes of music displaying the rich diversity of different cultures. Engineers predicted that sound records made of gold would have a lifespan of one billion years.” (Ann Druyan February 14, 1997, Ithaca, New York)

In 1973, Sagan acts as a consultant on Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey; unfortunately, the interoperability is short-lived due to the mismatch of characters. In 1978, Sagan was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Dragons of Eden, the most clear and comprehensive book ever written on the evolution of the human brain and intelligence.

In 1980 Sagan co-founded the Planetary Society, an international nonprofit organization focused on space exploration. The purpose of this institution is to explain space and astronomy to the public. Sagan first embarks on the TV series Cosmos: A Personal Journey that he wrote, presented and voiced himself. He also wrote a book of the same name. Cosmos made an incredible sound at the time of its release. The book and the television series go hand-in-hand in development. In fact, one forms the basis of the other. One of the most important features of the book is that it gives the reader the opportunity to revisit issues that require attention to be understood.

“The withdrawal of dinosaurs from the world stage as a result of an absolutely unknown disaster has given mammals a sigh of relief. Our ancestors were freed from living under the pressure of insatiable reptiles. We started to change and develop with great enthusiasm. Twenty million years ago our closest ancestors probably still lived in trees. Later they descended from the trees, because in a great ice age the forests had disappeared and were replaced by thickets. It is not a good thing to maintain the habit of living on trees if the number of trees is small. With the disappearance of the forests, most of the primates that lived on the trees disappeared from the scene. Only some of them landed on the ground and took the risk of the dangerous and difficult life there and continued their lives. And from the development of one of them, we emerged. No one knows the reason for this change in climate." (Cosmos)

Time Magazine made the cover of Sagan in 1980 and named him The Entertainer of Science. As the public's interest in Sagan increases, so do the critics. When Sagan interrupts his tenure at Cornell University, his classes are canceled and his doctoral students leave him. Scientists accuse him of acting unscientific to increase his popularity. There are also those who say that he talks about controversial issues as if they were scientific facts. Sagan starts a campaign for nuclear disarmament. Although he was accused by many of advertising when he launched the campaign, he becomes a vocal opponent of President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. In 1983 he wrote an article introducing the concept of Nuclear Winter. He co-authored the follow-up book, The Cold and the Dark: The World After Nuclear War, with Paul R. Ehrlich, Donald Kennedy, Walter Orr Roberts, Lewis Thomas.

Carl Sagan suffers from myelodysplasia in the fall of 1994 and is found to need a bone marrow transplant. He struggles with this disease for a long time, and special rites are held in mosques, synagogues and churches in his name. Although Sagan's treatment went well for a while, he died on December 20, 1996.

Sagan has been honored numerous times throughout his career. He has received Numerous Public Service Medals (1977 and 1981), primarily from NASA, and the Public Welfare Medal of the National Academy of Sciences (1994). In addition, his books and written works were deemed worthy of many awards, including the Pulitzer.