Immortal Carl Sagan and the Pale Blue Dot - Our Earth

Carl Sagan - The late great Pulitzer Prize-winning author, who died in 1996, would have turned 75 on Monday 9 November 2009. Broward College is to hold a day of activities and talks in his memory.

The university, near Davie, Florida, held planetarium shows and star-gazing, as well as a talk by the magician and sceptic James Randi, a friend of Dr Sagan.

Dr Sagan, a professor of astronomy and space science at Cornell University and an adviser to Nasa, played a major role in setting up Seti, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.

However, he is probably best known to the public for the television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, and his books Pale Blue Dot and The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.

As well as his research, he was a major science advocate and populariser, and a vociferous supporter of scepticism and rationality.

Robin Ince, the comedian and sceptic who organised the Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People, an atheist celebration of Christmas, told the Telegraph: "Anyone who declares that science is dull or dry or boring only needs to read a paragraph of one of [Sagan’s] books or see a snippet of him talking to realise that they are utterly wrong.

"There should be more days like this, celebrating science and scientists. I know Newtonmas may not take over from Christmas, but perhaps Einstun could take over from Whitsun."

Phil Plait, the author of the Bad Astronomy blog and another speaker at Carl Sagan Day, said: “Sagan inspired a generation of astronomers, and in reality a whole generation of people, to look at the sky and appreciate the - yes, I’ll say it - cosmos.”