Word: planet
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Perhaps Carl Sagan's strongest message in his efforts to bring science to the people is this: Science is the true language of the present and of the future. Only a small fraction of this planet's populace, however, can speak the language. The most significant question facing us is whether our civilization, as a whole, will learn to utilize science for the benefit of mankind. The answer will surely determine our future course: noble greatness or self-inflicted extinction...
...scientists gathered at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena may be tempted to hold their own Saturnalia. Next week, after traveling for more than three years, their robot Voyager 1 spacecraft will achieve its closest encounter with Saturn, providing the most spectacular view yet of the beautifully ringed planet and its system of moons...
Equally perplexing, since scientists figure Saturn should have cooled off ages ago, the planet is radiating more heat back into space than it receives from the distant sun. What is the source of this mysterious energy? Perhaps the most tantalizing question concerns Titan, Saturn's largest satellite (even bigger than Mercury) and the only moon in the solar system with a thick atmosphere. Could it harbor organic molecules, the precursors of life...
...least not enough to pump some life into Afghanistan's hemorrhaging economy. Instead, Karmal and Brezhnev signed a wide-ranging treaty of military cooperation. Said Karmal, with utter slavishness: "Were it not for the Soviet Union, there would be no Afghanistan on the political map of our planet, and all mankind would have been suppressed by the brutal barbarity of fascism and imperialism...
Back in 1971, the Mariner 9 spacecraft had just become the first ship from earth to orbit another planet. The target was Sagan's old favorite, Mars. In less than a year of reconnaissance, the robot accumulated more information about the Red Planet than had been gathered in three centuries of earlier observation from earth. Yet to Sagan's chagrin, the feat was virtually ignored by American television. Four years later, the even more spectacular Viking landings on Mars were again all but ignored. Sagan decided something had to be done. Joining up with an equally dismayed colleague...