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NASA has announced new Carl Sagan Fellowships for the study of extraterrestrial worlds and the life they might sustain -- a scientific pursuit pioneered by Sagan decades ago. Sagan played a key role in the NASA missions Mariner, Viking, Galileo and Voyager, and later advocated for NASA's Kepler mission, scheduled to launch in April 2009.
NASA has announced new Carl Sagan Fellowships for the study of extraterrestrial worlds and the life they might sustain -- a scientific pursuit pioneered by Sagan decades ago. Sagan played a key role in the NASA missions Mariner, Viking, Galileo and Voyager, and later advocated for NASA's Kepler mission, scheduled to launch in April 2009.
Thanks to a growing Internet community of exoplanet enthusiasts, some of the latest discoveries are being made and confirmed by amateurs - people who planet-hunt in their spare time and with their own telescopes.
Just 13 years after the discovery of the first planet orbiting a sun-like star, scientists have found more than 300 exoplanets, from char-broiled "hot Jupiters" that orbit their stars in a matter of days, to planets closer in size and composition to our own.
Webster Cash's passion for space began when he saw his first planetarium show as a child. Now, as the principal investigator for one of NASA's future exoplanet mission proposals, Cash is on the cutting edge of ideas that could help change our perception of the universe.
