Founded to find life in our universe

Carl Sagan Institute

The Carl Sagan Institute (CSI) was founded to find life in the universe. Based on the pioneering work of Carl Sagan at Cornell, our interdisciplinary team is developing the forensic toolkit to find life in the universe, inside the Solar System and outside of it, on planets and moons orbiting other stars.

CSI news

Three people stand next to a silver device, about a foot taller than the people, made of a post, a box with electronics inside, and a circular top

Cake-pan telescope searches the sky for fast radio bursts

The telescope is a series of eight terminals being installed at locations around the world.

Person holding up an orange menstrual cup

Spaceflight-tested menstrual cup offers choice on long missions

To equip astronauts with health choices for future missions, a Cornell postdoctoral fellow is leading research with AstroCup, a group that recently tested two menstrual cups in spaceflight as payload on an uncrewed rocket flight.

Artistic portrait of a person in argyle pattern sweater vest holds a small model of a molecule and looks pensive

Portraits honor 8 Cornell faculty as ‘new heroes’

The portraits are part of a series by Christopher Michel, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s inaugural artist-in-residence.

Illustration of a planet covered in orange-tinted clouds

How to spot life in the clouds on other worlds

Cornell researchers have created the first reflectance spectra – a color-coded key – of microorganisms that live in the clouds floating above Earth’s surface.

An orange-yellow sun with spheres of exoplanets silhouetted against it.

Is there water on an Earth-sized exoplanet? Study offers clues

TRAPPIST-1 e may have an atmosphere that could support having liquid water on the planet’s surface in the form of a global ocean or icy surface, according to new research.

Carl Sagan Medal awarded to astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger

The award recognizes and honors outstanding communication by an active planetary scientist to the public.

In the sky, a perfect half circle appears around a rising sun with two bright "sun dogs" on either side

Sun dogs, other celestial effects could appear in alien skies

Phenomena common to Earth’s atmosphere can appear in the skies over some exoplanets of the “hot Jupiter” variety.

SPROUT Awards cultivate early-stage engineering research

From designing a reversible male contraceptive to detecting life on distant ocean worlds, the latest Cornell Engineering SPROUT Awards are cultivating breakthroughs across medicine, space exploration, robotics and environmental sensing.

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Founded to find life in the universe

The Carl Sagan Institute was founded in 2015 at Cornell University to find life in the universe and explore other worlds – how they form, evolve and if they could harbor life both inside and outside of our own Solar System.

Are we alone in the universe? We're close to finding out

Are super-earths enhabited?

CSI Founding Director, Lisa Kaltenegger appeared on the StarTalk podcast with Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Matt Kirshen to discuss the potential for inhabited super-earths: