November 2024 Newsletter

November 9^th with be the 90^th anniversary of the birth of Carl Sagan.

According to Wikipedia, Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by exposure to light. He assembled the first physical messages sent into space, the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, which were universal messages that could potentially be understood by any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find them.

Initially an assistant professor at Harvard, Sagan later moved to Cornell University, where he spent most of his career. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books. He wrote many popular science books, such as The Dragons of Eden, Broca’s Brain, Pale Blue Dot and The Demon-Haunted World. He also co-wrote and narrated the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which became the most widely watched series in the history of American public television. Sagan also wrote a science-fiction novel, published in 1985, called Contact, which became the basis for the 1997 film Contact.

Sagan was a popular public advocate of skeptical scientific inquiry and the scientific method; he pioneered the field of exobiology and promoted the search for extraterrestrial intelligent life (SETI). He spent most of his career as a professor of astronomy at Cornell University, where he directed the Laboratory for Planetary Studies. Sagan and his works received numerous awards and honors. He married three times and had five children. Sagan died of pneumonia at the age of 62 on December 20, 1996.

https://www.tiktok.com/@planetarysociety/video/7299547998785260843

Join us for our pub night at Prairie Dog Brewing on the 9th and raise a glass to this amazing and ground breaking scientist and communicator!

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All our events’ details can be found on our Meetup Page at https://www.meetup.com/rockymountainatheists/events/.