The Sagan Planet Walk is a 5,000-mile planet display that features the distances between celestial bodies in our solar system and beyond on a 1 to 5 billion scale. 

New Dean of Faculty Prof. Joseph Burns Ph.D. ’66, astronomy, sat down with The Sun on Wednesday to discuss his goals and outlook for his term.

Carl Sagan, faculty from 1971 to 1996, is considered one of greatest popularizers of science. During his lifetime, Sagan published more than 600 papers and 20 books. He won a Pulitzer Prize, and he was even nominated for a Grammy. In the 1980s, he co-wrote and narrated the award winning television series, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, about the origin of life on Earth and humanity’s place in the universe. His novel, Contact, was made into a film with Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey. 

Where can you find the tomb of a secret society built into the side of a cliff, a building with no doors or windows and a secret research laboratory beneath a waterfall? No, it isn’t Hogwarts, it’s here in Ithaca on your way to class, by the road on your way home. Cornell’s campus has more secrets than a Dan Brown book: a closer look at some of the mysterious architecture around Ithaca reveals that the glossy brochure pictures of the Arts Quad are just the tip of a strange, strange iceberg. Some legends remain mysteries (catacombs beneath Sage Chapel, a secret exit from Uris) while others have been confirmed — you can walk through a tunnel between Olin and Uris on Slope Day, and the Cornell Synchotron accelerates particles under your feet while you run at Barton Hall.

This past Friday, Ann Druyan, wife of the late Cornell astronomer Carl Sagan and an accomplished writer, producer and science publicist in her own right, spoke to a small audience in Annabel Taylor Auditorium. Her talk touched on several topics, ranging from the interplay between science and religion to the fate of the 1977 Voyager spacecrafts, but focused around a central theme: Sagan’s visits with the Dalai Lama in 1991.

Druyan’s talk was part of a series of events commemorating the Dalai Lama’s current visit to Cornell, which will culminate in a series of talks by the Buddhist leader on Oct. 6 and 8.