Carl Sagan was such an amazing writer, orator, and thinker.

I could listen to that voice for hours on end.

A little quote from Ben Franklin:

“Being ignorant is not so much a shame as being unwilling to learn.”

Randi speaks of learning here as well.

Here’s to, hopefully, another 35+ years of learning.

The best one I can think of that puts it all into perspective:

Here’s to hoping you have a peaceful and relaxing weekend.

The seminal series by Carl Sagan launched back in 1980 on PBS is now avaiable on Hulu.

Now you can watch one of the most eloquent and enthusiastic scientists explain the universe in a manner that anyone can understand. Carl set the bar for any science show or novel since.

13 episodes, an hour each. Check it out. Over 20 years later it still holds up remaining topical and relevant. A testament to the writing and ideas Sagan put together in an effort to impart his love of science, skepticism and the stars to the masses.

Tomorrow will kick off the inaugural Carl Sagan Day on November 7th at the Broward College campus in Davies, Florida. If you don’t know who Carl Sagan is, you should.

Sagan was an astronomer. Moreover a passionate astronomer and scientist that could take the most complicated ideas, theories, and abstractions and boil them down into concepts that anyone could understand. His enthusiasm was infectious. It’s hard not to watch any video with Carl in it and not like the guy nor resist gaining a whole new appreciation for the universe and how it works.

He worked with NASA, taught classes, and worked on what was possiblely the most beloved science show of all time, Cosmos. This show that kicked off in 1980 only ran for 13 episodes. It was the inspiration for countless kids to become scientists or astronomers. It educated millions on how the universe worked in a language they could grasp and understand.

Youtube is littered with videos form Carl. Interviews, excerpts from Cosmos, lectures, and even some crazy remixes.

One of Sagan’s more memorable pieces is his Pale Blue Dot speech. It started with convincing NASA that they should rotate the Voyager 1 probe to take a shot of Earth. It took a bit of cajoling as no one quite grasped what Carl was getting at. Earth was so far away it would merely be a blue dot in the picture. That was Sagan’s point. We never have had a picture like that before.

It was featured in a book that Sagan wrote as a follow-up to Cosmos, aptly named Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space.

An excerpt from the book was given as a commencement speech Sagan gave shortly before his death in 1996. It’s an amazingly eloquent and poignant speech and well worth your time reading. It’ll certainly put a few things into perspective, especially if you are having a bad day. Take 5 minutes listen to Sagan read this passage.

Carl Sagan wrote a few books in his time. One of the most influential being The Demon Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark. If you’ve never read it before, you really owe it to yourself to pick this book up.

In a world full of pseudoscience, scam artists, and general crap, Sagan aptly illustrates the need to take a stand against it all. He outlines the damage believing in bullshit can do to both individuals and society at large. Sagan describes the tools you can equip yourself to spot fallacious logic – the spotty shield almost every piece of superstition and pseudoscience hides behind.

The Demon Haunted World is also a tale of how it all happens, how people and societies get duped into believing the craziest notions. It’s an exploration of thought process and humanity itself.

Carl Sagan died on December 20, 1996. You can see one of his last interviews here on the Charlie Rose show, pt1 and pt2.

The world mourned his loss. One of the most eloquent and passionate scientists of our lifetimes. I know I’m sad that I never had the chance to seem him speak in person.

And this is why the Carl Sagan Day is so neat. To celebrate the man’s life and his accomplishments, the next wave of enthusiastic scientists, skeptics and great critical thinkers are gathering together on November 7th. If you can get to the Broward College campus, I heartily recommend you go. It’s going to be an awesome time.

Some of the most violent phenomena in the universe that we’ve observed and studied are supernovae.

To put it into perspective, something that is billions of miles away can, upon exploding, outshine anything in our night sky – even bright enough to be seen in the daylight.

That’s pretty intense, and just the beginning of the awesome that is astronomy.

Besides being amazingly beautiful objects to photograph after they explode, supernovae provide a very essential element to our existence - they sow the universe with raw elements (think periodic table) like some suicidal galactic farmer.

Crab Nebula. Photo courtesy of NASA at www.nasa.gov

When a star goes supernova it blasts out elements at fantastic speed, pushing out giant clouds of super-hot gasses. This produces some pretty sights like the Crab Nebula above, which you can see with your naked eye on a very dark night.

While a supernova is bad news for the local solar system (kiss those planets goodbye) it’s great news for things that will form millions of years from now. The things you see and use today are made up of the elements blown out from supernovas billions of years ago, including your very own flesh and bones. Indeed as Carl Sagan said,“We are star-stuff”.

Eventually our very own Sun will go supernova, our sun will grow  into a Red Giant, which will consume most of  the inner most planets, and literally melt away most of the outer planets  before its core implodes and vaporizes most of our  solar system in one titanic blast before settling down as a White Dwarf star*.

By all accounts that’s still a few billion years away, hopefully by which time we’ll have populated other solar systems. Yet another reason to have a solid space program. Sooner or later we need to get off this rock.

*Duh on my part. Our sun doesn’t quite have the mass to go supernova.