IMAGE: Earth Seen From 4 Billion Miles Away

[Nomad559]

Photographed By Voyager 1 On June 6, 1990



Of the "pale blue dot," astronomer Carl Sagan said, "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."


How Insignificant Do You Feel?

:)

[billyskank]

1. Extremely insignificant

[Oeditpus Rex]

2. That's Photoshopped!

[Nomad559]

3. Photoshopped!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot

On February 14, 1990, NASA commanded the Voyager 1 spacecraft, having completed its primary mission, to turn around to photograph the planets it had visited. NASA ultimately compiled 60 images from this unique event into a mosaic of the Solar System. One image Voyager returned was of Earth, 4 billion miles (6.4 billion kilometres) distant, showing up as a "pale blue dot" in the grainy photo.

:)

[zanne]

4. Makes my problems seem a little smaller, too. nt

[bridgit]

5. i wonder how much it cost to have a carton of orange chicken delivered out there...

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

[Little Wing]

8. Minimum 15 doller order!

No exceptions!

[pokerfan]

6. Want to feel really small?

http://www.wordwizz.com/pages/1uexp-1.htm

Just keep clicking on the blue square that has the +1 inside of it to the right of the picture. Each successive image will zoom you out by a factor of ten. 10x, 100x, 1000x, etc.

You can also zoom in using the pink squares.

[Orsino]

7. I'm more concerned over that big blue ring around the planet.

The alien armada is closing in.

[montanto]

9. ok, you can have my liver. nt

[johnnie]

10. Hey look...

I can see my house from here.

[eyepaddle]

11. I love that picture--as well as the rest of the "family album"

shots Voyager 1 took.

I can't reccommend Sagan's Pale Blue Dot higly enough--I think it is one of his best books, and a recurring theme is these "great demotions" when humans slowly realize that we may not be the center of all the universe's attention.

I think that's healthy. :)

[mainegreen]

12. Not very insignificant at all.

Always felt that the vast emptiness and mind-numbing geometric regularity of space just goes to show how fantastically, amazingly awesome (old style usage of awesome: awe-some) we are. Cricky, were just so damned cool and fancy compared to space.