Saturday, November 7, 2009

Billions and Billions...

Today, you can think big about space, because it's Carl Sagan Day.

Pictured at the right is a model of a Voyager probe, one of the many projects to which Dr. Sagan contributed. Voyager 1 and 2 were famous for carrying the golden record, "Murmurs of Earth" to the stars to tell others about humans and how to find us. Artie doesn't think this was a good idea.

"Cosmos" was Dr. Sagan's groundbreaking television series and something still worth watching decades later. He was a founder of The Planetary Society. Among his books was the Pulitzer-Prize winning treatise against psuedo-science, "The Demon Haunted World," where he introduced his Baloney Detection Kit. Something I think Daria would put to good use.

So, take a look at the sky tonight and try to think of what words of wisdom Daria would've wanted recorded on Voyager's record. I think it would probably be something like, "Even we can't listen to these things anymore, how does anyone expect you to listen to it?"

4 comments:

The Angst Guy said...

That's weird. Carl Sagan was born on November 9th, but Carl Sagan Day is November 7th. It sounds like they wanted to go with a Saturday the first time, then on his real birthday in later years. I think.

The Angst Guy said...

My favorite quote by Carl Sagan: "Every one of us is precious in the cosmic perspective. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another."

The Angst Guy said...

What Daria would have put on Voyager's record is nothing compared to what Jane would have put on it. Aliens would flee the galaxy in droves.

the bug guy said...

It looks like they had a lot of stuff planned for the day, so a Saturday makes sense.