Viewing the Cosmos @National Geographic

"The cosmos is all that there ever was and ever will be." --- Carl Sagan.

If you are a fan of the awe and mystery of man and the universe, then you should head to the National Geographic Museum where an engaging exhibition on the TV show Cosmos is now on display.

The exhibit examines both the original airing of the series with Carl Sagan and the new version with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, which is now showing on the National Geographic channel.

Sagan's series, which debuted in 1980 and ran for 13 weeks, remains the most globally successful American public television series of all-time. It has been seen by more than 800 million viewers around the world. Sagan's accompanying book spent 70 weeks on the New York Times' best-seller list and was listed by the Library of Congress as one of the 88 books that shaped America.

Actually, there is a close personal tie between Sagan and Tyson, who is the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, has become a favorite guest on both The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report for his ability to explain scientific concepts, and is the first scientist with more than 1 million Twitter followers.

When Tyson was applying to college, he was accepted at Cornell University where Sagan was then a professor. Sagan wrote Tyson a personal letter, inviting him to tour his lab. Even though Tyson decided to attend Harvard University, Sagan's outreach made a deep impression on him.

"I learned the kind of person I wanted to become," Tyson says. "I have this duty to respond to students who are inquiring about the universe as a career path the way Carl Sagan responded to me."

Both men have been described as those rare scientists who can "bring the universe down to Earth like no others."

In their essence, both the original Cosmos and the new version, which began airing this month, present the world of our universe as explained by science.

"Cosmos is a saga of how wandering bands of hunters and gatherers found their way to the stars," says Ann Druyon, a writer who worked on both versions of the show.

Smithsonian Sunday: Why Carl Sagan Is Irreplaceable

DC's Smithsonian museums (there are 17 of them here in the city) are among America's most treasured and visited places. But the Smithsonian also publishes a series of some of the most interesting, fact-filled blogs appearing anywhere on the internet. Each Sunday, The Prices Do DC re-posts an entry that initially appeared in one of those highly-readable blogs. Hope you enjoy and maybe we'll see you soon at the Smithsonian.

We live in Carl Sagan’s universe–awesomely vast, deeply humbling. It’s a universe that, as Sagan reminded us again and again, isn’t about us. We’re a granular element. Our presence may even be ephemeral—a flash of luminescence in a great dark ocean. Or perhaps we are here to stay, somehow finding a way to transcend our worst instincts and ancient hatreds, and eventually become a galactic species. We could even find others out there, the inhabitants of distant, highly advanced civilizations—the Old Ones, as Sagan might put it

No one has ever explained space, in all its bewildering glory, as well as Sagan did. He’s been gone now for nearly two decades, but people old enough to remember him will easily be able to summon his voice, his fondness for the word “billions” and his boyish enthusiasm for understanding the universe we’re so lucky to live in.

He led a feverish existence, with multiple careers tumbling over one another, as if he knew he wouldn’t live to an old age. Among other things, he served as an astronomy professor at Cornell, wrote more than a dozen books, worked on NASA robotic missions, edited the scientific journal Icarus and somehow found time to park himself, repeatedly, arguably compulsively, in front of TV cameras. He was the house astronomer, basically, on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show.” Then, in an astonishing burst of energy in his mid-40s, he co-created and hosted a 13-part PBS television series, “Cosmos.” It aired in the fall of 1980 and ultimately reached hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Sagan was the most famous scientist in America—the face of science itself.

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