Carl Sagan memorial is Feb. 3 at Cornell

The Cornell community will gather in tribute to the memory of Carl Sagan, the late David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences and director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies, at a service Monday, Feb. 3, at 2 p.m. in Bailey Hall. The program is open to the public. Sagan, 62, died of pneumonia on Dec. 20, in Seattle, Wash., after a two-year battle with a bone marrow disease. The memorial will begin with a 15-minute video of highlights from Sagan's PBS 13-part series, Cosmos, the Emmy- and Peabody-award-winning show that became the most watched series in public-television history. Several faculty members, former students and friends, including President Hunter Rawlings and President Emeritus Frank H.T. Rhodes, will speak at the event.

The undergraduate class that Sagan was scheduled to teach this semester, Astronomy 202: "Our Home in the Solar System," is being co-taught by Yervant Terzian, the James A. Weeks Professor of Physical Sciences and chair of the department, and James Cordes, professor of astronomy, in Sagan's honor. One of the texts the professors will use is Sagan's 1995 book, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space.