Tonight, NASA will attempt to land the Curiosity rover on Mars to investigate whether the red planet once housed life. It’s a risky and hilariously expensive ($2.5 billion!), but the rover is part of an important mission to discover whether or not we are alone in the universe.
Nobody has explored that goal in popular media like Carl Sagan, host of the 1980 miniseries Cosmos. The series is a unique fusion of science, history, and politics that still stands as the high watermark for popular science.
As we re-explore the chances of extraterrestrial life, now’s as good of a time as any to watch (or rewatch!) Sagan’s legendary series.
HU DVD 4271 – 4277 — Cosmos