Happy birthday to Carl Sagan, born on this day in 1934 in Brooklyn, New York. The American astronomer, astrophysicist, and author (among other things) helped explain space to the general public through hundreds of articles, dozens of books, and his popular public television series “Cosmos"—watched by more than 500 million people in 60 countries. He also researched extraterrestrial life and assembled the first physical message sent into space. Sagan helped solve mysteries of the universe, including the greenhouse effect on Venus that explains the planet’s high temperatures. In 1980 he wrote, “Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.” Photo: Michael Okoniewski
