Old 'Cosmos' vs. New 'Cosmos': Who's the King of the Universe?

There were two times in my life when I was literally brought to my knees by the beauty of the night sky. Once was on a camping trip in the Nevada desert in my late 20s, when I looked up, caught the Milky Way shining brighter and clearer than ever I'd seen, like a river of a billion diamonds. My legs started to buckle, apparently realizing their insignificance in the scheme of things. I sat down rather rapidly on the desert floor.

The other time was when I was a child and first watched the late Carl Sagan's 1980 PBS series, Cosmos, and had the exact same reaction standing in front of a TV set. Sagan's "ship of the imagination" and the galaxies it span through — well, they weren't quite state of the art special effects, even in 1980, the year of Empire Strikes Back. But it was enough, with Sagan's hypnotically confident narration, to send millions of minds spinning into the stars. Mouth agape, head shaking, barely able to stand: this was how we watched Cosmos. Read more...