The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of planet Earth taken in 1990 by Voyager 1 from a record distance, showing it against the vastness of space. Both the idea for taking the distant photo and the title came from scientist and astronomer Carl Sagan, who also wrote the 1994 book of the same name.In 2001, it was selected by Space.com as one of the top ten space science photos.Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977. Sagan had pushed for Voyager to take a photo of the Earth when its vantage point reached the edge of the solar system. On February 14, 1990, having completed its primary mission, NASA commanded the spacecraft to turn around to photograph the planets of the Solar System. Between February 14, 1990 and June 6, 1990, one image Voyager returned was of Earth, showing up as a “pale blue dot” in the grainy photo.
In his book, Pale Blue Dot, Sagan wrote:
“While almost everyone is taught that the Earth is a sphere with all of us somehow glued to it by gravity, the reality of our circumstance did not really begin to sink in until the famous frame-filling Apollo photograph of the whole Earth — the one taken by the Apollo 17 astronauts on the last journey of humans to the Moon.”
In a commencement address delivered May 11, 1996, Sagan related his thoughts on the deeper meaning of the photograph:
(Parts of this article are taken from Wikipedia)
