Pale Blue Dot

This article is about the photograph. For other uses, see Pale Blue Dot (disambiguation).

Pale Blue Dot
Dark gray and black static with colored vertical rays of sunlight over part of the image. A small pale blue point of light is barely visible.
Seen from about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles), Earth appears as a tiny dot within deep space: the blueish-white speck almost halfway up the rightmost band of light.
ArtistVoyager 1
Year1990
TypeAstrophotography
LocationInterplanetary space
OwnerNASA

Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of Earth taken on February 14, 1990, by the Voyager 1 space probe from an unprecedented distance of approximately 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles, 40.5 AU), as part of that day's Family Portrait series of images of the Solar System.

In the photograph, Earth's apparent size is less than a pixel; the planet appears as a tiny dot against the vastness of space, among bands of sunlight reflected by the camera.[1] Commissioned by NASA and resulting from the advocacy of astronomer and author Carl Sagan, the photograph was interpreted in Sagan's 1994 book, Pale Blue Dot, as representing humanity's minuscule and ephemeral place amidst the cosmos.[1]

The photograph was captured by Voyager 1, a spacecraft launched in 1977 with the initial purpose of studying the outer Solar System. After fulfilling its primary mission and as it ventured out of the Solar System, the decision to turn its camera around and capture one last image of Earth emerged, in part due to Sagan's proposition.[2]

Over the years, the photograph has been revisited and celebrated on multiple occasions, with NASA acknowledging its anniversaries and presenting updated versions, enhancing its clarity and detail.

  1. ^ a b "A Pale Blue Dot". The Planetary Society. Archived from the original on December 19, 2014. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
  2. ^ "From Earth to the Solar System, The Pale Blue Dot". NASA. Archived from the original on December 18, 2014. Retrieved December 24, 2014.