Carl Sagan - Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_sagan

Born	November 9, 1934 Brooklyn, New York
Died	December 20, 1996 Seattle, Washington

Carl Edward Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, astrobiologist, and highly successful science popularizer. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI). He is world-famous for writing popular science books and for co-writing and presenting the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos, then the most-watched PBS program of all time,^[1] until 1990's The Civil War. A book to accompany the program was also published. He also wrote the novel Contact, the basis for the 1997 film of the same name starring Jodie Foster. Throughout his career he wrote more than 400 published scientific and popular articles. In his works, he frequently advocated skepticism, humanism, and the scientific method.