Saturday 24 September 2016

Pale Blue Dot

Voyager 1, which had completed its primary mission and was leaving the Solar System, was commanded by NASA to turn its camera around and take one last photograph of Earth across a great expanse of space, at the request of astronomer and author Carl Sagan.


Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of the Earth taken from the Voyager in 1990 from 6 billion kilometres away. 


This iconic image was taken at the request of famous astronomer, Carl Sagan, as the engineers took one last look at their home planet, which appeared as a tiny dot against the vastness of space.

Carl Sagan opened our eyes to the meaning of this image and life on earth: On that dot “every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives.”
Seen from about 6 billion kilometers, Earth appears as a tiny dot (the blueish-white speck approximately halfway down the brown band to the right) within the darkness of deep space. 
Now follow the Brainpickings.org link in the tweet below, play the video at the site and then reflect on what Sagan says:

Sapientia et Doctrina ...