American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, writer and science communicator. Carl Sagan became one of the most famous voices in astronomy around the world. Thanks to his charisma and his great skills as a popularizer -he was a really eloquent person-, he got the general public interested in science through the television series ‘Cosmos’. And, throughout his career, she became involved in different projects related to space. It is impossible not to mention that Sagan played a fundamental role in the early days of planetary exploration, being a key figure in NASA’s Mariner, Viking, Voyager and Galileo missions; He also co-founded the SETI Institutewhose objective is to detect signals from intelligent civilizations beyond Earth and in 1974, the famous astrophysicist and his colleagues sent the Message from Areciboa radio broadcast directed to a distant star cluster with basic information about humanity and the solar system as a symbol of our intentions toward possible intelligent alien civilizations.
This is the message Carl Sagan left before he died for the first humans on MarsMidjourney/Sarah Romero
A life marked by science
Everything started from a very young age, when his parents took him to the 1939 New York World’s Fair, a visit that marked the path toward physics and astronomy. From there, scientific achievements of all kinds would not stop happening, from planetary science to the search for extraterrestrial life. First of all, He was a great defender of the exploration of our neighboring red planet and I was convinced that we should go to the planet to study it as an Earth analog and to look for possible signs of past life.
Such was his passion for Mars that, several months before his death, while dealing with cancer, he sat in his home in Ithaca, New York (home of the famous Cornell University), and recorded a moving message for future explorers, conquerors and colonists of Mars. The fervent desire he felt for our neighbor and arid planet is manifested in the recording or message he left.
Sagan’s message
“Hello, I’m Carl Sagan. This is a place I work often in Ithaca, New York, near Cornell University. Maybe you can hear, in the background, a 200-foot (60-meter) waterfall very close by, which is probably (I suppose) a rarity on Mars, even in high-tech times. Science and science fiction have done something of a dance over the last century, particularly with respect to Mars. Scientists make a discovery. It inspires science fiction writers to write about it, and a lot of young people read science fiction and get excited and inspired to become scientists and find out more about Mars, which they do, which then feeds back into another generation of science. fiction and science; and that sequence has played an important role in our current ability to reach Mars. It was certainly an important factor in the life of Robert Goddard, the American rocket pioneer who, I think more than anyone, paved the way for our actual ability to go to Mars. And it certainly played a role in my scientific development.”
Sagan was not only an astronomer, but a visionary of the cosmosMidjourney/Sarah Romero
The most interesting and moving part of the recording is the following, in which addresses the astronauts directly that one day they will inhabit Mars:
“I don’t know why you’re on Mars. Maybe you’re there because we’ve recognized that we have to carefully move small asteroids to avoid the possibility of one impacting Earth with catastrophic consequences, and while we’re in near-Earth space, it’s just a hop, skip. and a jump to Mars. Or perhaps we are on Mars because we recognize that if there are human communities on many worlds, the chances of some catastrophe on one world wiping us out are much smaller. Or maybe we are on Mars because of the magnificent science that can be done there: the doors to the wonderful world are opening in our time. Maybe we are on Mars because we have to be, because there is a deep nomadic impulse built into us by the evolutionary process; After all, we come from hunter-gatherers, and for 99.9% of our time on Earth we have been wanderers. And the next place to travel to is Mars. But whatever the reason you’re on Mars, I’m glad you’re there. And I wish I was with you.”
His work transcended the limits of the academic worldMidjourney/Sarah Romero
A visionary of his time
It’s funny because, at the end of the 1990s, taking that look into the future It was something quite distant at that time, since there was still practically no planning for missions to Mars with manned ships (it was something in its infancy), so, once again, this visionary genius dreamed and inspired the following generations who were attracted as much as he was, by the search of knowledge in the universe.
Sagan died due to complications from cancer in the December 1996, shortly after his 62nd birthday. As a way to honor this inspiring message and an endearing way to achieve that goal of having humans on Mars that I so desired, the recording was sent to Mars in 2008 on NASA’s Phoenix lander, thanks to The Planetary Society, of which he was also a co-founder. The important message to future colonists is stored on a special silica glass DVD, designed to last a long time on the surface of Mars. And it is that Sagan’s influence extends beyond his scientific contributions. He was a philosopher of science who reflected on ethical and existential questions both inside, appreciating and protecting our planet, and outside, marking our interest in the exploration of the cosmos.
His legacy lives on todayMidjourney/Sarah Romero
