The Sagan Series

The Sagan Series, Part 1, The Frontier is everywhere.

"We were hunters and foragers. The frontier was everywhere. We were bounded only by the earth, and the ocean, and the sky. The open roads still, soft and cause. Our little  terraqueous globe is the madhouse of those hundred, thousand, millions of worlds. We who can not even put our planetary home in order, riven with rivalries and hatred, ARE WE TO VENTURE OUT INTO SPACE ? By the time we are ready to settle even the nearest planetary systems, we will have changed. The simple passage of so many generations will have changed us. The necessity will have changed us. We're.. an adaptable species. It'll not be we who reach Alpha Centauri and the other new by stars, it'll be a species very like us, but with more of our strengths and fewer of our weaknesses. More confident, farseeing, capable and prudent. For all our failings, despite our limitations and fallibilities, we humans are capable of greatness. What new wonders undreamed of in our time will we have rot in another generation and another. How far will have our nomadic species have wondered, by the end of the next century and the next millennium. Our remote descendants safely arrayed on many worlds in through the solar system and beyond, will be unified. By their common  heritage, by their regard for their home planet, and by the knowledge that whatever other life may be, the only humans in all this universe, come from earth. They will gaze up and stream to find the blue dot in thier skies. They will marvel that how vulnerable the repository of war potential once was. How pairless our infancy. How humble our beginnings. How many rivers we had to cross before we found our way." - Carl Sagan

The Sagan Series, Part 2, Life looks for life.

"As children we fear the dark. The unknown troubles us. Anything might be out there. Ironically it’s our fate to live in the dark. Head out from the earth in any direction you choose, and after an initial flash of blue, you are surrounded by blackness; punctuated only here and there by the faint distant stars. Even after we're grown the darkness retains its power to frighten us, and so there are those who say we should not enquire too closely, into who else might be living in that darkness. Better not to know, they say.
There are four hundred billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Of this immense multitude, could it be that our humdrum sun is the only one with an inhabited planet? Maybe, maybe the origin of life or intelligence is exceedingly improbable. Or maybe civilizations arise all the time but wipe themselves out as soon as they are able. Or, here and there peppered across space. Maybe there are worlds something like our own. On which other beings gaze up and wonder as we do, about who else lives in the dark.
Life is a comparative rarity. You can survey dozens of worlds and find that in only one of them does life arise, and evolve, and persist. If we humans ever go to those worlds, then it will be because a nation or a consortium of them, believes it to be of its advantage, or to the advantage of the human species. In our time we have crossed the solar system and sent four ships to the stars. But we continue to search for inhabitants. LIFE LOOKS FOR LIFE -Carl Sagan

Carl Edward Sagan (English pronunciation: /ˈseɪɡən/) (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, astrophysicist,cosmologist, author and science popularizer and science communicator in the space and natural sciences. During his lifetime, he published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he advocated skeptical inquiry and the scientific method. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).Sagan became world-famous for his popular science books and for the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which he narrated and co-wrote. A book to accompany the program was also published. Sagan also wrote the novel Contact, the basis for the 1997 film of the same name.


This social media series aimed to spread the message of the need to enhance human efforts in space exploration and astronomy, created by Reid Gower for NASA. Includes original narration by Carl Sagan.

The narration conveys the true feelings of an astronomer to the common man. An astronomer who walks out to stare at the night sky appreciates the vastness and expanse of his vision. The magnitude of countless objects visible to him. The separation between him and object in his line of sight. And then wonder about the scale of his existence. Him on a planet which is like a grain of sand resting on the earth and him living on that grain of sand with other fellow beings. These fellow beings, enriched with such vision, courage and wisdom that they endeavor to explore the humongous objects presented to them by the universe, in tiny small steps. Carl Sagan says that we evolve, and evolve we do. Into better lifeforms, each generation better than the other, greater than the previous one. Progress with generations which lead to species which are humans but very different from us, they are the ones who realize the futility of war for small tiny tangible objects, they realize the greatness which needs to be achieved. The frontiers which need to be conquered, the things which need to be explored, the lives which need to be made better. They explore the vast expanse, they explore the other species, they appreciate what they have done and have already learnt from their mistakes. They do not fight for becoming wealthier, for possessing the rare and precious, they fight for knowledge, which comes from explorations and discoveries. We, such tiny creatures have explored tremendous vistas, this works as the ultimate motivation for them. Those will be the humans who go out to Alpha Centauri, inhabit other planets and become a matter of pride amongst all the species.   

Contact | An Astronomer's dream movie.

If I did not discuss about this movie I just watched, something would always be missing in this journal. I am stunned and goosebumped by this amazing movie. Calling it “Any astronomer’s dream movie” is most appropriate. Definite must watch for any aspiring astronomer. The best of Science Fiction and beauty of human imagination. I am astounded.






The movie begins with space view of the earth, It zooms out slowly and with a nice view of sunrise from space. Further zooming out continues and moon passes by, then mars, then comes the asteroid belt, then Jupiter and its satellites, then comes beautiful Saturn and its rings, zooming out continues to show M16 pillars of creation, milky way galaxy and further. The start itself was so perfect. The little girl sending signals and receiving response from initially unknown locations creates the feeling of true exploration and pleasure of discovery, the feeling that every astronomer cherishes within himself. Elly is heard telling “i’m gonna need a bigger antenna”. That was something. Everyone wants bigger aperture bigger antennae, again a feature of a true astronomer.

Contact, Astronomer's dream come true.

Later in the movie they also show the beautiful sound of a pulsar, awesome. So truly amazing that was. Wish I could hear the true sound of a pulsar. Or if they’ve shown the real pulsar sound in the movie, hats off to you movie guys. But whatever was heard in the movie was extraordinary. The sound, sounds so surreal.

Later, Elly sits on her car with tens of huge antennae in her background moving together in identical motion like a bunch of sardines in water, that’s a view. The alien signal is received and whole process of decoding it was well laid out in the movie. Elly’s travel through wormholes in space, passage of 18 hours which appeared like a fraction of a second on earth. Elly’s expression on seeing that beautiful view of the galaxy, meteors blazing through the skies on the imaginary planet, such view you don’t see very often, and all very well designed, flawless and majestic views. Later, the most discussed stuff in science may be, wormholes and the Einstein Rosen bridge were mentioned. Everything in the movie seems so happening. That’s what you would want to see. One of the best Science Fiction movies ever. Wait! I have double thoughts in calling it a science fiction, today’s science fiction might be tomorrow’s reality. Still you say we can’t see the future. Yes we can. Human imagination is one of the best things which we possess.  

After watching the movie I am stunned. It made me feel, when will we leave our stupid and wasteful worldly affairs and start appreciating the universe which has been thrown to us. Mere presence of it is like the utmost pleasure you can get. Go out in the open in night and try this, If you really understand what i am trying to say. I doubt everyone will. Go out on the terrace, close your eyes for few seconds, Look up and open your eyes. Feel like you were just born now, imagine this sky you had never seen before, wind passing by, stars shining into your eye, why does it happen, it’s a gift, something exclusive for us to enjoy and cherish, only if you realize its presence.

I would like to end by this random line. A very strong line, very well said in the movie contact “The Universe, is a pretty big place. Its bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamt of. . .  So if it’s just us, .. .. .. Seems like an awful waste of space”.