Cosmos by Carl Sagan [Book Summary]


At times, life drama can become overwhelming. Did you forget to fetch your sibling from the port? Failed an exam again? During situations such as these, it might look as if life is haunting and taking charge of all the pieces of energy in the world. However, definitely, there have been billions of individuals living with you on earth. Also, within the world itself, that’s only the tiniest grit in our continuously growing world. What are you concerned about?

Sagan’s abilities lie in turning the hard relatable. In large part, nothing can be more huge than Cosmos. Knowing about the world isn’t usually about complicated math. It’s more like a history course like a science course. Pursuing Sagan’s clue, these book chapters lead you to a trip through humankind’s concern in space and the earth from ancient eras coming to the ultimate journeys of universe discovery during the 20th hundredth year.


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Chapter 1 – The World is really small.


The past of humanity has been restricted to the earth for a long. According to us humans, it is all we have, basically our world. However, contrasting with the universe at large, our world is basically only a speck in a fleck of dust. The reason is that the extent of the metagalaxy, in other words, the Cosmos, has been virtually about our understanding.

As a matter of fact, it’s really huge that we’ve needed to form a unique measurement scale according to light’s pace.

In the world, the most rapid matter has been the light: it can move 186000 mi, in other words, 300000 km, in only a second.  So to say, it is equal to multiple 7 of the Earth.

According to that, at the time scientists mention the Cosmos, scientists utilize light-years – which is the distance light travels totally in an entire year. In the figure, that is nearly 6 trillion mi or ten trillion km!When you think that was not incredible enough, think the Cosmos had about 100 billion, or 1011, solar systems. And in every solar system, there are approximately 1011 celestial bodies and 1011 globes.



When you calculate it, you’ll notice that the human planet is just one of the 1022 globes that Cosmos carries. Frighteningly unimportant.

The fundamental physical properties of the universe, for long, are recognized by humans. Scientists were examining its nature about 2,000 years ago. Also, they estimated the earth’s mainland neither to be infinite nor was it flat.

During the 3rd hundredth year BCE,  the manager of the popular big Alexandria’s library in Egypt, named Eratosthenes, calculated that our world had been a sphere.

One day while Eratosthenes was perusing a papyrus roll, he got to know that in Egypt’s Syene, which is the present-day Aswan, close to the river Nile, sticks didn’t cast any shadow during midday. This meant that in Syene at noon, the sun came vertically atop.

Therefore, Eratosthenes conducted an experiment. He put a stick vertically to the floor in Alexandria; discovered that during the middle of the day, there had been a shadow for that city.

With his observation, he deduced that there is no possibility for our world to be straight and it should have been curved. When the land had been straight, none of the sticks had shadows at the same time, or all of them had an equal angle according to where the sun came and hence would have equal length of the shadow.

Also, he succeeded in utilizing the distinction in the lengths of the shadow to correctly estimate the perimeter of our world. However, he needed to employ someone to measure the interval between Syene and Alexandria (a path of nearly 1000 km) for acquiring the last measurement he required for the calculation!

This finding was critical. From this understanding, determined travelers embarked on small boats. The distance they covered, we might never understand. However, the soul of discovery has been urged on by scholarships until this moment. What do you think have been satellites other than ships traveling through space?


Chapter 2 – Both planets and stars have constantly yelled to people, making us know regarding the world and its position in the cosmos.


Before the beginning of ancient times, people have glanced at the ether and attempted to understand those tiny points that sparkle up during nights in the sky.

However, they didn’t only gaze at them; also, they understood that they could utilize them.

About 40000 breeds previously, our wandering predecessors set the times of yearly gatherings with other clans of other terrains by checking the location of stars.

Also, they made use of stars for estimating the time of tides in order to understand the time-specific fruits would get ripe, and when buffalo and antelope would move.

All these were possible due to the consistent and foreseeable actions of celestial spheres.

As a matter of fact, when you track the actions of globes in due course, you’ll notice that they have a type of curve through the air.

This investigation made Ptolemy, an astronomer that studied in Alexandria’s Library to postulate a theory during the 2nd hundredth year CE.  According to Ptolemy, the core of the cosmos was the earth, and planets, as well as stars, rotated all over it.

That was a hypothesis that remained for centuries. It was only in the year 1543 that Nicolaus Copernicus thoroughly theorized that our world, and all further globes, rotated all over the sun.

Then the sun had been considered as the core of the cosmos.



About 60 years after, that pattern was refined further. Johannes Kepler a German cosmologist, laid his mind on the extraordinarily thorough information gathered by Tycho Brahe from Denmark who was a nobleman, and experimental cosmologist.

From these data repository, Kepler estimated that planets’ orbits while rotating were not ring-shaped, as assumed previously; however, as a matter of fact,  were elliptical. This created the first planetary motion law from his 3 of those, and these are still used in astrophysics up to this moment.

Also, Kepler had a really fascinating theory. He claimed that a power that he named “magnetism” struck globes from a distance. That might clarify the reason planets accelerate at the time they are nearest to our sun. It seems kind of familiar, the reason is that Kepler basically predicted the theory from Isaac Newton; universal gravitation of around ½ a hundred years.


Chapter 3 – A planet that is hellish and unwelcoming is Venus; however, Mars might be livable.


There is this old saying that utters “Women came from Venus and men came from Mars.” The saying is from the Roman notion that Venus has been the Love Goddess, whereas Mars has been the War God. It might be a nice word; however, physics is somewhat a different subject.

There was no explanation for it. Venus has essentially been our constellation’s form of hell. Because Venus was 60 Mln km nearer to our sun than our world, it became extremely boiling. Exterior heat may get to the grades of 480°C (900°F).

It becomes more unsatisfactory. We may find out the substances the globe’s atmosphere is made of. Celestial spectroscopy has been utilized to examine the gleam mirrored off Venus. This reveals that our atmosphere has been, as a matter of fact, 96% composed of CO2. And about its exterior, the plumes consist of condensed sulfuric acid. That forms the greenhouse impact that assists in making the globe boiling.

Venus definitely doesn’t seem like the type of location to go to for a fairy-tale holiday.



On Mars, everything is a bit different. Although, Mars would be a good place for a honeymoon either; however, it resembles our world a little more. Mars has been the planet that is the nearest to our world, and it is kind of similar to it. On Mars, there are white plumes, sandstorms, and polar ice caps. The days on Mars are also 24 hours.

Those resemblances might describe the reason we consider aliens naming them “Martians.” The myth of the Martian can be followed by Lowell, the creator of the Observatory of Lowell around Flagstaff in Arizona during the year 1894.

He persuaded himself that on the surface of Mars, there were signs of watercourses. He believed that these were probably made by intelligent beings around that globe.

Although his belief was,  definitely, later proven to be untrue, the fantasy continued in pop culture.

With that being explained, it has not been a crazy thought that we people could settle on Mars sometime. Mars is less hot than our world; temperatures are between (-80)°C and 0°C or (-112)°F and 32°F. However, that’s not really distinct from Antarctica, where people may and they actually survive.

The main difficulty for humans staying on Mars has been obtaining water. On Mars, there has been no available body, also, there has not been water around Mars’ atmosphere. Everything becomes more difficult still since the pressure in the atmosphere is really low, any water could boil away really more rapidly than it would in our world.

With that being said, if it is possible for us to melt Mars’s icebergs to load developed water channels such as Lowell believed he observed, then perhaps someday we people could refer to ourselves as Martians.


Chapter 4 – There could be being on other planets; however, it’s not likely to get to our world with a spacecraft.


Generally speaking, if someone will be actual Martians sometime, it could solely be, humans. However, that does not hinder us from inquiring pertinent inquiries: are there beings around other globes or in further cosmos?

Nobody could be sure about this; however, there’s a thing all could be sensibly confident about. Extraterrestrials will certainly look really distinct from ordinary people.

Only consider all the various forms of existence in our world. Such as 1 cell bacterias, whales, bugs, and people, advancement has formed an abundant cornucopia. It’s been a slow and long process occupied with a lot of haphazard variations and, severely, reliant on earth conditions

This signifies that there’s no cause to reason that any living thing on a different planet would resemble something in our world. Nevertheless, that globe would possess totally different circumstances and a distinct advancement history.

However, that doesn’t signify that we can’t attempt to predict the thing that another being might resemble. What of Jupiter? It is a huge planet made of gas with a lot of helium and hydrogen around the atmosphere.

When there is existence, they might occur as huge gas balloons, maybe against kilometers. They would most likely move by extracting blasts of gas, maybe develop their food via a process that is like the photosynthesis of plants here in our world.



With that being explained, when we interact with extraterrestrials, this is not likely that the way we will connect directly. They would most likely connect us initially via radio waves. The reason is that radio has been an inexpensive, rapid, and easy means to make contact across huge spaces.

All sophisticated extraterrestrial civilizations would understand that even civilization as “basic” as people would most likely have figured out the fundamentals of radio; therefore, would try to utilize it in getting transmissions from the cosmos. Therefore, that’s most likely the thing they would attempt to send to us.

However, what type of message would they send across? Maybe a series of prime quantities may function fine. The reason is that the perfect message should specify clearly and briefly that it has been intentional and has been transmitted by a smart being.

Also, what of us humans? Can we have a bodily connection with existence around other globes? Theoretically, it’s possible; however, politics hinders that. The “Orion” project was established in 1958. The notion was to form an aircraft that is interstellar and thrust by huge energy. That energy might be created by little atomic bursts externally from the aircraft.

However, it will not be. The Soviet Union and the United States agreed on an agreement that prohibited “the eruption of nuclear guns around space” during the year 1963. Also, similar to that, the chance of the Orion starship getting to the stars became futile.


Chapter 5 – Contemporary science is not really modern: the ancient Ionians were the first to reach there; however, their effort was repressed for centuries.


For the majority of the people, contemporary science contains some kind of connection with civilization, Leonardo d Vinci or Copernicus, who had been the outcome of the 16th hundredth year Renaissance.

However, as a matter of fact, contemporary science possesses a lot of deeper origins. The Ionians from Greece had been its ancestors.

Ionia was an area around the East Mediterranean: the thing we now consider as Greek islands of the East and the West part of Turkey. Around olden times, that was the crossway of enlightenment. Ionia wasn’t just a capital of trade; however, the area was also ruled by Babylonians, Egyptians, and further huge civilizations.

All of these developments possessed their own deity, who was believed to rule the area.

This made these people a bit confused. Who should they worship then, was that Zeus from Greece or Marduk from Babylon? The decision they made was surprising. They chose that the fundamentals of nature and physics were the ones that ruled the world.



The Ionians began conducting experiments and therefore brought about a scientific reformation. Maybe well-known, Democritus developed the theory of atoms in about 430 BCE. That has been a Greek term that signifies “uncuttable.” He claimed that at the time you divide an apple, the knife is really going through the empty gaps amongst atoms. Subsequently, he concluded that all objects could be viewed as having blank gaps and atoms.

But, unfortunately, experimental Ionian methods and grasping were weighed down for several centuries. Pythagoras from Greece can be blamed for that.

Pythagoras, as well as his disciples, assumed that the universe, is divine and perfect, followed by fixed laws of geometry. Everything they required was naive thinking and nothing more. Experimentation didn’t have any spot around that academic attitude.

Critically, Plato and Aristotle, who were the best philosopher minds of the typical world in between, were deeply swayed by Pythagoras’ concepts.

During the 5th to 4th hundredth years BCE, they began to have the claim that making experiments was similar to work with hands around fields. Hence, It was work appropriate for slaves. Naive intellectual consideration has to, in contrast, be theoretic.

At the time Christianity became prevalent, it took the notion from Pythagoras of an excellent divine universe. Subsequently, scientific attempts that produced novel doctrine-shaking findings were pushed down.

This suppression had a huge influence on them. The scientific process of investigation and making experiments was only revived during the sixteenth century.


Chapter 6 – Light has an exceptional spot in our world.


From the things we could observe with telescopes and our eyes, it has been obvious that the cosmos is an amazing and strange place. Comets, cosmic dust, exploding stars, and the abundance of colors in planets are marvelous by themselves. However, also more incredible is that there are further things about the universe that are explained however we can’t see.

The typical example is the pace of light. The remarkable thing is not just its speed; however, actually, this pace has been continuous and there is nothing to surpass it.

During the early twentieth century, Albert Einstein figured out these characteristics of light with a sequence of what he named Gedankenexperiment, the German term for “hypothetical experiments.”

This is an illustration. Assuming you go with a car, near to pass over a crossway. A train that has a 90-degree angle with you on the tracks and is going to the same crossway with you. When you get closer to the crossing, get to know that you would get there at the precise time with that train. Therefore, you would lower your speed at the right time to prevent an accident.

Think like your friend has been from another part of the road passing you; your friend is upwards of the path you have been driving on and watched you steer directly at him.

For the hypothetical experiment: suppose the train and you were going near the pace of light.



The peer would notice you all thanks to the gleam mirrored from your automobile. Assuming the pace of light could be changed, it would get to you with the pace of light plus the pace of the automobile. The light mirrored from the train – the thing that is not traveling in your direction – would merely attain with the pace of light.  Meaning, the peer would watch you get to the road prior to the train. However, what is the way you and your friend go through the same occurrence differently?

Einstein understood counterintuitive events similar to these might just be prevented when these principles were abided by. First of all, light moves at the exact pace all the time, regardless of who’s watching it. Secondly, there is absolutely nothing that may move more rapidly than the pace of light.


Chapter 7 – Our civilization is carried through space with Voyagers 1 and 2.


Since Eratosthenes found out that our world was bent, travelers and discoverers have been motivated by science for wandering to find new realms.

There is nothing that represents our knowledge of finding greater than the journeys of the spacecraft without people who travel around the solar structure and external to space.

Around September 1977, NASA instigated Voyagers 1 into space, and Voyagers 2 was launched into space in August of 1977. The 2 shuttles were intelligently made: they had loads of pieces compiled redundantly. That entails that if a piece fails, the other piece can take its job.

For example, each Voyager consists of three different types of computers, and all those computers themselves are replicated.

Their sources of power are made to last long. It’s just like possessing “a little nuclear power building” aboard. Energy is formed by the breakdown “of a tablet of plutonium.”

Also, both of the crafts are giving us a lot of data, as well as images that are transferred back to our world via radio. During the year 1979, Linda Morabito from the Voyager group made use of these images to find a dynamic volcano around Io, the deepest moon Jupiter possesses.

The Voyager’s vessels do not only send signals to us; they transmit data regarding the best parts of people as well. Scholars agreed on this really thoroughly.

They knew that if extraterrestrials interrupt signals from our world, they could definitely become really confused. They could select the waves from TV and radio live streams. Their image of our world could be a combination of car advertisements and detergents, mixed with fragments of real transmissions sent during periods of disaster and war. How would they see people?



Currently, there is absolutely nothing to be done regarding those transmissions: they have been set already.

But, the Voyager group chose to connect to each vessel an image that is gold-covered copper with a stylus and cartridge. There have even been guidelines on the way to see the tracks on the aluminum record sleeves. The discs had tracks on the thing NASA believed was exceptional and fascinating about the earth. They added data about limbic systems and cerebral cortex of our nature, and salutations in sixty different languages of people. There had been one hour of songs from the entire cultures around the world and voices from wildlife and contemporary tech.

It is a really wide collection of stuff. Maybe aliens who see it will like our accomplishments. Or perhaps they basically won’t know. We could tell that we made an effort at least.


Cosmos by Carl Sagan Book Review


The Cosmos has been a huge object nearly above understanding; however, we are aware that is occupied with remarkable and great things. For several hundred years and thanks mainly to scientific scholarship, we could understand that the world is only a point in the huge Cosmos. Currently, we understand our place; however, astrophysics let us explore it gradually.


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Savaş Ateş

I'm a software engineer. I like reading books and writing summaries. I like to play soccer too :) Good Reads Profile: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/106467014-sava-ate

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