Dec 20 1996
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (1MB PDF)
Astronomer and Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Sagan died after a long fight against a bone marrow disease; he was 62 years old. Since 1971, Sagan had directed Cornell University's Laboratory for Planetary Atmospheres and Surfaces, where he forged his reputation as an expert in exobiology. Sagan helped plan the Mariner, Viking, and Voyager missions, receiving NASA's Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement in 1972. Sagan also helped popularize modem science with his widely viewed television series Cosmos. Sagan described the television series as an endeavor "to show that science is a delight and to end people's artificial alienation from it." Sagan's The Dragons of Eden (1977) won the Pulitzer Prize. Throughout his work, Sagan had also argued for the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
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