I’m glad to see the new Mars Science Laboratory safely landed on Mars. I’m confident that it will help us make a significant progress in our understanding of our lovely neighbor planet.
Carl Sagan Is Alive
Welcome, fellow human being, I'm Carl Sagan.
Let's discover the Cosmos together.
August92012
July252012
jaspervalentine asked: Hello Carl! It's nice to be able to talk you... I just have a few questions, one, could you tell me why Black Holes are formed like way out of our reach, and why they cant materialize near our planet, and if they can, why haven't they? Second, have you heard that Pluto has been declassified as a planet, and what are your thoughts? And lastly... Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson (you may have heard of them) have kept up your fantastic work...
Those are great questions, let’s try to seek an answer to them one by one.
Concerning black holes, we must start saying that they don’t simply materialize, the truth is that black holes are just stars. Stars so huge, dense and massive that not even light can go fast enough to escape their gravitational pull. However, it’s not easy for so much stuff to assemble together and form such a massive celestial object, that means most black holes were formed in the primordial universe.
From this knowledge, we can have a better intuition of black holes formation and we may go further to see why they’re not near Earth. We’re alive, here, on this small rock we call Earth. A black hole near Earth would have catastrophic consequences for living beings and probably prevent life completely. That means when the Earth formed billions of years ago there were no near black holes for us to evolve. We’re here simply because we had a chance to be here. In the whole universe there are surely millions of potential Earths that never were, for they were too near a black hole.
Moving to Pluto, I think this shows how human beings are by far the most emotional creatures we know of. By instinct we try to stay with our own ideas and avoid change as much as we can. But that’s not how science works. Science seeks understanding, and to understand one must first put the right things in the right places. We categorize things, and when a new way of categorizing them is proposed, which is better than the previous one, we change. The same way we did when Mendeleev proposed to categorize elements in what is now called the Periodic Table.
Pluto hasn’t changed, it’s the same object it was before, it doesn’t care how we call it on Earth. But for us, we have a new and better categorization and that will help us when we’ll face the next challenges nature will offer.
Finally, I’m immensely grateful to anyone who’s willing to share his or her love for science. Not only famous people, but each one of you, each one who is fascinated by the universe, each one who wants to explore it and understand it, each one who fall asleep under a starry night lost contemplating that we’re one with nature.
July222012
Hello everyone
Please share with me your questions about the universe and the working of science and we’ll try to solve them together.
Best wishes, Carl
July112012
45 years passed between the discovery of Jupiter’s Galileian moons and Titan, the first moon discovered orbiting Saturn. Today, we are lucky enough to live in a time where exciting discoveries are made on a daily basis.
The Hubble Space Telescope, the most powerful orbital telescope we’ve ever built, has graciously confirmed that we live in such an exciting time, discovering a fifth moon orbiting the dwarf planet Pluto.
Please take a moment to consider that. Thanks to our greatly developed technology; thanks to our passion for science, astronomy and the universe; thanks to all the people who lived before us, we was able to spot a moon with an estimated diameter between 9.6 to 24 kilometers that is currently located about 4600 billion kilometers from Earth.
There’s probably nothing more exciting than exploring the universe, and nothing more beautiful than the fact that we can be a small part of this large scientific endeavor.
July102012
pork-choppers asked: If a second is in theory limitless, why aren't we? Oh and what's your favorite salad dressing?
A second is defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom.
I can see no way in which it may be considered physically limitless.
Our language, which allow us to communicate and express our feelings through poetry and literature, is not our best tool to describe the cosmos. Its know subtleties, in fact, allow for vague and not precise questions, which then seem to have no consistent answer.
While trying to explain the universe with words and metaphors, we must keep in mind that its fundamental structure is written in the language of mathematics.
P.S. Salad dressings are not much healthy and I prefer to go easy with them.
July92012
Anonymous asked: Sir, how excited are you about the finding of the Higgs boson particle?
Long time ago, thanks to our understanding of mathematics, and its relation to the physical world, scientists postulated the existence of a very peculiar particle. Now, more than forty years later, we witness the magnificent discovery of this new particle.
The finding of the Higgs boson reveals what humans can achieve when they assemble together towards a common goal.
As a scientist, I’m always delighted with new discoveries and new insights about the cosmos. At the same time, as a human being, I look with proud and wonder at the scientific endeavor that our species is carrying on.
July12012
Humans are dreamers. We try, no matter how improbable a goal is or how impervious the way to succeed may be, we keep trying.
Space exploration describes it best. The dream of a civilization in its infancy to reach for the stars. We’re not there, not yet, but we’re lucky enough to inhabit a solar system full of wonders, and these we can explore.
Data from the Cassini spacecraft has now revealed that Titan, the second biggest moon of our solar system, is likely to harbor a layer of liquid water under its ice shell.
When we search for alien life among other planets, water is what we primary look for. Sure enough, other forms of life may exist who don’t need water to thrive and survive, but we have to start from something, and we start from something much familiar to us: water.
This is, or should be, a grand moment for every conscious being. Through science, space exploration and our determination to dream big, we’re getting closer and closer to find an answer to one of our most compelling interrogatives: Are we alone? And the answer may be no.
10AM
My fellow human beings
I welcome you all to my blog.
In it I want to share with you thoughts and ideas about science, critical thinking and love for each other. We’ll embark in a journey through the cosmos to find meaning and hope, for that’s what our species desperately need.
P.S. Yes, I died, and it was a humbling experience.
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