Death of Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan died on 20 December 1996 in Seattle, aged 62. An American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator, Sagan helped to bring science to a mass audience. He was involved in NASA missions, including Mariner, Viking, Voyager and Pioneer, and helped to design the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record. His thirteen-part television series Cosmos, broadcast in 1980, was seen by hundreds of millions of people, and his books such as The Dragons of Eden and Pale Blue Dot won wide readership. He studied the greenhouse effect on Venus, and he warned of the dangers of nuclear winter and was a co-author of the nuclear winter hypothesis.

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