NASA's Carl Sagan Fellows to Study Extraterrestrial Worlds

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Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

J.D. Harrington 202-358-2769
Headquarters, Washington
jharring@nasa.gov

News release: 2008-170 Sept. 3, 2008

NASA's Carl Sagan Fellows to Study Extraterrestrial Worlds

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA announced Wednesday the new Carl Sagan Postdoctoral
Fellowships in Exoplanet Exploration, created to inspire the next generation
of explorers seeking to learn more about planets, and possibly life,
around other stars.

Planets beyond our solar system, called exoplanets, are being discovered at
a staggering pace, with more than 300 currently known. Decades ago, long before
any exoplanets had been found, the late Carl Sagan imagined such worlds, and
pioneered the scientific pursuit of life that might exist on them. Sagan was
an astronomer and a highly successful science communicator.

NASA's new Sagan fellowships will allow talented young scientists to tread the
path laid out by Sagan. The program will award stipends of approximately
$60,000 per year, for a period of up to three years, to selected postdoctoral
scientists. Topics can range from techniques for detecting the glow of a dim
planet in the blinding glare of its host star, to searching for the crucial
ingredients of life in other planetary systems.

"We are investing in our nation's best and brightest in an emerging field
that is tremendously inspiring to the public," said Jon Morse, Astrophysics
Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The Sagan Fellowship will join NASA's new Einstein Postdoctoral Fellowship
in Physics of the Cosmos and the Hubble Postdoctoral Fellowship in Cosmic
Origins. All three fellowships represent a new theme-based approach, in which
fellows will focus on compelling scientific questions, such as "are there
Earth-like planets orbiting other stars?"

"NASA's science-driven mission portfolio, its cultivation of young talent
to pursue cutting-edge research, and the decision to commit its genius to a
question of transcendent cultural significance, would have thrilled Carl,"
said Ann Druyan, Sagan's widow and collaborator, who continues to write and produce.

"That this knowledge will be pursued in his name, as he joins a triumvirate
of the leading lights of 20th century astronomy, is a source of infinite pride
to our family," said Druyan. "It signifies that Carl's passion to engage us all
in the scientific experience, his daring curiosity and urgent concern for life
on this planet, no longer eclipse his scientific achievements."

A call for Sagan Fellowship proposals went out to the scientific community earlier
this week, with selections to be announced in February 2009.

"There is an explosion of interest in the field," said Charles Beichman of NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Now we are going down a scientific
path that Carl Sagan originally blazed, torch in hand, as he led us through the dark."
Beichman is executive director of NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute at the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena, which will administer the fellowship program.

Recently, NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have made landmark observations
of hot, Jupiter-like planets orbiting other stars. The telescopes detected methane and
water in the planets' atmospheres -- the same molecules that might serve as tracers of
life if discovered around smaller, rocky planets in the future. In a 1994 paper for the
journal Nature, Sagan and colleagues used these and other molecules to identify life
on a planet -- Earth. They used NASA's Galileo spacecraft to observe the molecular
signatures of our "pale blue dot," as Sagan dubbed Earth, while the spacecraft flew by.

"Only a select few scientists carry the insight, vision and persistence to open entire
new vistas on the cosmos," said Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and Frederick P. Rose
director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
"We know about Einstein. We know about Hubble. Add to this list Carl Sagan, who empowered
us all -- scientists as well as the public -- to see planets not simply as cosmic
objects but as worlds of their own that could harbor life." The fellowships were
announced at the planetarium today.

NASA's Kepler mission, which Sagan championed in his last years, will launch next
year and will survey hundreds of thousands of nearby stars for Earth-like worlds, some
of which are likely to orbit within the star's water-friendly "habitable zone" favorable
for life as we know it.

JPL manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate,
Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech.
Caltech manages JPL for NASA. JPL also managed the Galileo mission.

More information about NASA's Sagan Fellowships is at http://nexsci.caltech.edu/sagan .
More information about extrasolar planets and NASA's planet-finding program is at
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov .

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