This picture was taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft on February 14, 1990 at a distance of 4 billion miles away from Earth. The idea for the picture was advocated by the famous astronomer Carl Sagan. In his book Pale Blue Dot, he wrote the following in regards to this famous picture:
“We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and if you look at it, you see a 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 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. 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. 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.”
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Posted by Tim Roth, author of the political blog Think Anew and Act Anew
Tim,
I really found your Pale Blue Dot entry interesting, and perhaps a little humbling. Not that I want to make it sound too commerical, but one of the ads linked to your blog is very intersting. If you haven’t, look at http://www.123aeb.com….a very intersting site about sustainable design and homes. They have a discussion about changing out light bulbs to save energy. I think the power companies should be made to spend $0.01 for every $1 they want to spend on coal fired power plants on subsidizing the cost of upgrading home lighting…the payback might be better than the efficiency improvements they will see in retiring old plants. The only question in my mind is whether replacing a 100 watt light with a 32 watt cf light gives you the same amount of actual light.
Interesting posts – they always say the next generation will learn so much more than the previous…I would say the scale has already tipped in your direction. Of course, I had my old man by the time I was 18…or at least I thought so.
Take care and I look forward to your entries. Dad
PS: If you can find info on careers in sustainable design – it might make a good article. The solution to the problem will come from within the industry….with a little gentle nudging from you blog writers.
[...] Not only will you learn a lot about the science of climate change, you can read about present-day Stone Age tribes untouched by modern civilization, why drinking moderate amounts of wine may be good for your health, and other wonders of the pale blue dot called Earth. Posted in General Information [...]