How’s this for an unbelievably cool surprise? Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane has paid for Carl Sagan’s personal papers to be preserved in the Library of Congress for all to benefit from. Apparently there are a lot of papers, as they filled 800 filing cabinet drawers. McFarlane is doing the remake of Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson (which Tyson recently tweeted isn’t due until 2014 now!) so he has a long the appreciation of Sagan:

“He was an enormous and profound influence in my life,” MacFarlane said. “He played an essential role — some would say the only role at the time — in bridging the gap between the academic community and the general public.”

Carl Sagan passed away in 1996, but his wisdom should never go away. Putting these papers in the Library of Congress will ensure that people will be able to study his work for generations. Seth McFarlane just earned an infinite amount of geek cred with this,