What is the Pale Blue Dot?

On 14 February 1990 the command was given for the Voyager 1 spacecraft was ordered to turn around and take a photo. This photo, now known as the Pale Blue Dot, is, in my opinion, the most significant photo ever taken. It is significant in that it shows our own immense insignificance. Voyager 1 took a photo of the Earth from 6 billion kilometres (40 Astronomical Units / 3.7 billion miles) away at the request of Carl Sagan.

Last week's photo's were of chemical bonds. This week we are looking at just 1 image. Let's be curious and ask 'what is the Pale Blue Dot?'

This post doesn't have a header image, nor any other image on it. The only image I wish to share in this post is the Pale Blue Dot. Beneath the image I have included Carl Sagan's thoughts on it. If you're struggling to find your home planet, it is the Pale Blue Dot in the brownish sunbeam near the right of the picture.

"Pale Blue Dot" by Voyager 1 - http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=601.
Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

~ Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: a Vision of the Human Future in Space


What do you think of the Pale Blue Dot image? It may show how insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things, but it also highlights just how significant we are to this planet.

Can you guess what next week's image is? Here's a clue: the photograph(s) is(are) in the news a lot recently. Give your guesses in the comments section.

Let me know your thoughts on the Pale Blue Dot in the comments below. If you like this post you can share it using the links to the left and below. Follow It Is All Science using the links to the right.

It Is All Science. So, let's be curious.