Carl Sagan Writes a Letter to 17-Year-Old Neil deGrasse Tyson (1975) — openculture.com

Carl Sagan, the turtleneck-sporting astrophysicist from Cornell, was the greatest communicator of science of his generation. Not only did he publish hundreds of scientific papers and was instrumental in putting together that golden record on the Voyager spacecrafts but he also wrote twenty critically praised best sellers on science, appeared regularly on the Tonight Show, and even had a catch phrase — “billions and billions.” But Sagan is perhaps best known for his landmark 1980 series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (watch it here). He took viewers through a tour of the universe, showing them things from the mind-boggling big to the infinitesimally small and everything in between. The show proved to be a huge hit; close to a half-billion people tuned in worldwide.

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