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Carl Sagan was born in Brooklyn, New York to a Russian father and an extremely religious mother in 1934.
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Carl Sagan began to work for NASA as an advisor in 1950.
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Sagan went to the University of Chicago at the age of 16 after having graduated from High school,
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Sagan graduates with a BA in physics.
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Carl Sagan earned his master's degree in 1956.
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First ever probe to be sent into space and because it was successfully sent into space, it triggered the Space Race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union
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First American satellite to be sent into space, officially starting the Space Race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
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Sagan earns his Phd in astrophysics from Chicago University in 1960.
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In 1960 Sagan helped NASA with their Mariner 2 probe. He helped design the infrared radiometer that would go on the probe.
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Sagan briefly worked a scientific consultant on the film " 2001: A Space Odessey".
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Sagan was named the head of Cornell's laboratory for planetary studies in 1968.
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Sagan attacked the UFO sightings at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting claiming there was no reliable witness accounts and no physical evidence of UFOs.
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The first time anyone from space landed on the moon, when Apollo 11 from the United States landed.
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Carl Sagan was part of the team that managed the images that Mariner 9 took of Mars. Which were some of the first pictures taken of the martian landscape.
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Sagan's book, "Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective", was a huge hit. It stayed on the best seller list for over 60 weeks.
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Sagan and James Pallack were among one of the first scientists to theorize in 1974 that the greenhouse effect made Venus so hot, that no life could possibly exist on it. This claim was proven true by the findings of the Mariner 2 probe.
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Sagan helped choose the locations where Viking 1 and 2 would land. They were the first successful probes to land on Mars.
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Sagan used this committee to help explain the correct concepts of science through the media.
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Carl Sagan's hit novel "The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence" won the Pulitzer Prize.
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Vayager 1 and 2 both had messages that Carl Sagan was able to convince NASA to let him put on them. The messages were encoded on a golden disc. The encoded message is written in various languages of Earth and included music and even whale sounds. Sagan hoped that some extraterrestrials would stumble upon the Voyagers and find the message. In this image Sagan stands next to a photo of Voyager 1.
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Carl Sagan co-founded th planetray society in 1980. This group was dedicated to the promotion of space exploration and helped him create his show "Cosmos'.
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In 1980 "Cosmos" aired on PBS. It was an enormous success; it was seen by millions all pver the globe. It helped bring science to millions since he explained science on the show in a way people could understand. It was the most watched thing on PBS ever, until ken Burn's Civil War series in later years.
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Sagan became the first person to introduce the idea of a "nuclear winter" in 1983.
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Sagan made a huge scientific blunder by publicly announcing that Iraq burning Kuwait's oil wells would cause a small scale nuclear winter and threaten the world's food production. It was proven false when the oil wells were burned and no climatic effects were seen.
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Sagan was nominated for membership, however, he failed to reach a two-thirds majority for acceptance and was not elected.
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The National Academy of Sciences received the Public Welfare Medal as a recognition and perhaps a partial compensation for his rejection into the Academy.
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Carl Sagan died at the age of 62. He died of pnemonia, a compication the bone-marrow disease, myelodysplasia, he had contracted.
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Carl Sagan's novel 'Contact" was adapted for the big screen in 1997. It starred Jodie Foster as the protaganist.
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The show Sagan is most known for was rebooted on Fox in 2014. It is being produced by Sagan fan Seth Macfarlane. The host is also another Sagan fan, the famous scientist Neil degrasse Tyson.
