Our pale little blue dot
This is a picture of Earth. Yes. If you look very carefully and closely, you’d see it. Just below the center line, on the right side, bathed in sunbeam. Yes, it’s that speck of dust.
“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 ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every 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 in 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 the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. 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. It is up to us. It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, 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 and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”
This photo was taken by Voyager 1 in 1990 as it was returning from a space mission. The photo itself would not have been remarkable without the inspiring quote from Carl Sagan (an astronomer), that reminds us of how small we are, even though some times we think that we are the center of the universe, or even, the universe.
[via Big Sky Astronomy Club]
[Do check out the rest of the posts on this blog - I muse on design and other interesting tidbits]
[...] As I read her entries, I imagined myself floating in space, looking through the round windows. Looking back at Earth. The peace and serenity that makes one smirk about sweating the small stuff. About life’s priorities. And about the silliness of running the rat race. About love and generosity. In some ways, it is in a similiar spirit to my earlier post about Earth being a pale blue dot. But this is a much more personal account, and so much more relatable. The cities are easily distinguishable because they look like someone took a shovel and messed up the ground in that area. The agricultural lands have specific geometric shapes and demonstrate different colors based on the crop and the type of soil. You cannot see any borders… you cannot tell where one country ends and another one starts… the only border you see is the border between land and water. [...]
M&D-
Check this out…This little dot is us. Be sure to read the text to get the full significance of our where, how, and why we fit in.
Ty
Second time I stumbled on this stunning frame. I honestly couldn’t trace Earth. Imagine it might be any of the myrids noise-specles this picture is made off. And that is what we really are, clearly.
Voyager 1 never did and never will return. Noob.
Voyager 1 never did and never will return. Noob.
it did in star trek
So small and unimportant in the tidings of the universe, in the backwaters of our our galaxy. Yet on it, we are beings driven daily by the idea of having a purpose. In a place where science tries to tell us it was all an accident, with all the cards stacked againts us in my opinion itsd not just an accident but a miracle that we do exist.
Cool to see this image finally. I read about it in Carl Sagans book, Cosmos and heard about it in the the Pale Blue Dot series.
It sort of helps put things in perspective yet I think I find the frame filling earth image from the Apollo missions more moving, easier to identify with.
“Voyager 1 never did and never will return. Noob.”
Uh, there’s a difference between being in the process of returning, and succesfully returning.
it’s small world but i’d hate to have to paint it
WOW! That is the most outstanding summery of our existence I have ever heard.
good
See how little we are ?
If You think the son of God is interested in such
a small planet we really are then the thinking
isnot clean imho.
Free thinker
“Voyager 1 never did and never will return. Noob.”
Uh, there’s a difference between being in the process of returning, and succesfully returning.
Haha…your dumb…It was never supposed to return. It never was “in the process” of returning. Do some research before you comment on anything.
[link]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1[/link]
he is damn right, do a freaking research before u comment on anything
Your attempt to impress with your knowledge of insignificant facts… misses the point I believe… also Jesus’ idea of son of god and your typical right wing evangelists idea are probably slightly askew. Nice pic.
Smallness does not indicate lesser value or importance. The brain in your head directs your
body, or at least, I hope so.
This is great. I will just repeat a part from Carl Sagan’s quote:
“That’s home. [...] The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, [...] lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.”
Funny how small the Earth looks from such a distance, yet when you take the full scale of the universe into account, we find we are at the center of the universe. It is as much smaller than us as it is bigger.
I can see me waving…
The universe is not small. History with regards to our place in the universe has been a series of blows to our ego. It is larger than we could ever imagine, and it is the height of ignorance to suggest that we are the center of the universe, either philosophically or literally. We are a speck of dust on a speck of dust- people do not like being humbled but there is little else that can come from looking at people’s ultimate place in things, and that’s why historically people have insisted that they must be vital to the world, or that the world is fundamentally for them.
you people are a bunch of queer who need to gwt a lif
get a life you people are losers
Roland I’m not sure why you think we’re at the centre of the Universe. We’re not. We are close to the centre of the Milky Way galaxy, but beyond that, I’m not sure how your misconception arose.
[quote]See how little we are ?
If You think the son of God is interested in such
a small planet we really are then the thinking
isnot clean imho.
Free thinker
by Anonymous March 30th, 2007 at 9:31 pm{[quote]
No such thing as a free thinker… There are invinate possibilitys in a pre-determined matrix which gives the illusion of free thinking – CHAOS THEORY!!!… everything is known if only you look at the clues.
Some greater power must exist as the matrix had to be designed (for progression) and started. Call this power God if you will but the Bible is wrong as it’s writen by man!
Drew, yes the bible was writen by men but that dosnt
mean it is wrong. The bible was inspired by God and God still can speak to you through it. I know that sounds crazy but its true. I started to read the new testament, asked God to reveal Himself to me and He did. i dont know how this works it just does.
Thanks Rod
Rod is exactly right. The heavens proclaimed Christ’s coming from the time they were set in place, and he came at exactly the right time to do exactly the right thing. Just because we’re small in the scope of the universe doesn’t mean we’re unimportant. A single bacteria entering a body has changed more than one life, I’m sure. And that bacteria is small compared to a person, and seemingly insignificant in the scope of the world, but it matters to the people who contract it and sometimes changes everything.
Welcome to the family Rod.
Rod & Tiffany
Get real, there is no god or greater being. It is just a load of old hokum dreamt up by intelligencer to control the masses. You only believe because your folks told you to, because their folks told them to and so it goes on. These are the same people who told you that the tooth fairy exists and so does santa clause. To say he must exist because it needed to be created, is not an answer, “because” is never an answer and is one that you would never accept from a child so why from anyone else? Accept that in a universe of infinity, there are infinite number of possibilities and the fact that we exist where and how we do is one of those possibilities. Life in whatever other forms that exist within the universe do so for their own reasons too, not because of any divine intervention.
You guys need to read the bood from Richard Dawkins called ” The God Delusion”, and all those ideas about intelligent design and a creator will be clarified. You need to also read “The Varieties of Scientific Experience” by Carl Sagan. Actually, start with the latter one. As I began reading this forum, I like to find people thinking alike, however, it went in a really bad direction towards the end. Let’s keep the logic and reasoning at the foreground! There are other forums that can deal with discussions about fairies, Santa Claus, Moses, Cinderella, and the immortality of Woody Woodpecker. I hope I don’d offend those emotional souls! If there really exist!:)
By the way, I think Trudy is on the right track. I was recommending these books specially for Rod and Tiffany.
Leave it up the innate urge to argue to take away from a profound concept.
[...] 2008 Some posts back, I blogged about Carl Sagan’s insightful and inspiring take on the smallness of mankind in the grand scheme of things – Earth was really just a speck in the universe, and humans are, in [...]
you cannot tell me that that little speck of dust placed among the stars just happend …….there is a God.
Yeah – And Thats where Nottingham Forest Play !!!
Ha! I need to show this picture to those girls at my school who think that they are bigger than the universe. This picture is truly amazing. I love that quote too.
Funny how some humans faced with something they struggle to understand take God as the only answer.
Good thing many happily abandon that belief when a better explanation is offered.
Painful that random chance in a sea of infinity prompts some to conclude that “it must be god”…
When the evidence tends to suggest.. there’s no need for one…
the ultimate in the life, even on the pale blue dot ! words are not crossing beyond this point #