Friday, February 14, 2020

Pale blue pixel..


I reckon this is probably my 2nd most awe-inspiring photo ever taken. It's not the first time I've posted it here but my excuse for a re-run is that this is a "re-processing" of the original data from the Voyager space craft showing the planet Earth taken from over four billion miles away (let that number sink in for a minute) as the little craft  was passing Saturn (the Earth is actually behind one of the rings) Carl Sagan talked about it on one of his TV programs and coined the title "The Pale Blue Dot",  he also wrote a book inspired by this image. In his famous TV speech he intimated that everything we (Human-kind) cares about happens on this little insignificant dot, all our lives, all our successes and all our failings on a fraction of a pixel - it's a powerful message and one that should make us all reflect more on how tenuous our position in the universe is.

If you're wondering what my #1 picture would be it's the Hubble deep-field and probably #3 would be Earth-rise, all pretty amazing achievements when you think about them.

No comments: