Cosmos and Carl Sagan Day

I was born at the end of the 70's. One of my earliest TV memories is the Olympic Games of Moscow in 1980. I was 3 and I honestly don't remember much about it. But something I clearly remember from my childhood is watching Cosmos, by Carl Sagan.  I don't remember the program itself, because I was probably too young to understand it, but I know I loved it and I loved its music by Vangelis. I remember the excitement in my young minds, probably mixing Cosmos with Galactica or Martian Chronicles!

Years later, as a teenager, I spent a fortune (by my standards!) buying the VHS collection. I watched it so many times that after a couple of years the tapes were broken.

Today would be Sagan's birthday. He was born on a 9th of November. And today, almost 20 years after he died, people celebrate the "Carl Sagan Day". Sagan was the voice of science, the voice of reason and talked about the Universe in a way that it was impossible not to stop to think what a privileged lot of molecules with conscience we are.

Still today, Cosmos has a deep effect on me. It makes me happy to be a scientist and not any other thing. It makes me happy to have spent many nights in the garden looking up to the January sky through my telescope. It also makes me miss people that were around me in the 80's and they are long gone by now. 

Now you can enjoy it directly in YouTube. Show it to your kids if they speak English! I hope they like it as much as I did 30 years ago.



I would like to dedicate this post to my friend Daniel Herrero. He came to my home the day Carl Sagan died, and that was the first thing he told me then. I couldn't believe it, and I later, alone, I cried with the book of Cosmos in my hands.