25 years ago, "Voyager 1" photographed "pale blue dot" Bashny.Net

February 14, 1990 automatic probe "Voyager 1", at a distance of 6.5 billion miles from Earth, "looked back" and did 6 pictures of the solar system. One of them became known as the «Pale Blue Dot» or "pale blue dot" - it is possible to distinguish the point of pale blue pixel size of 0.12: planet Earth.

Scheme shooting "a portrait of the solar system" as follows:



Although the photo was taken a wide-angle camera, each of the planets was filming another, narrow-angle, with a focal length of 1500 mm, specifically aimed at her. Photographs were taken through red, green and blue filters separately, which were then combined. Mars is too low light at the time of the shooting, as well as too close to the Sun, Mercury, the image no.

Made "Voyager" larger images looks like:



Characteristic elongated artifact in the photo - is scattered sunlight. He turned so because taken during shooting long exposures (0.72, 0.48 and 0.72 sec) and diffraction of light by stretching the calibration lamp mounted in front of the lens wide-angle camera "Voyager».

Shooting on Earth probe insisted known planetary scientist and science popularizer Carl Sagan. On the motives of photos he wrote heartfelt essay is often compared to the emotional speech from Steve Jobs to the graduates of Stanford:

Take a look again at this point. It's here. This is our home. This is us. Everyone you love, everyone you know, all of whom you've ever heard, all they ever existed people have lived their lives on it. Many of our pleasures and sufferings, thousands of self-confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and gatherer, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every couple in love, every mother and father, each capable child inventor and explorer, every teacher of ethics, each lying politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote, suspended in a sunbeam. blockquote> Read completely Land - a very small stage in the 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 masters of the short-term portion of a grain of sand. Think of the endless cruelties committed by the inhabitants of one corner of this point on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of another corner. About how often the differences between them, how eager they are to kill one another, how hot their hatred.
Our posturing, our imagined importance, the illusion of our privileged status in the universe - they all succumb to this point of pale light. Our planet - a lonely speck in the surrounding darkness of space. In this enormous void no hint at the fact that someone would come to our aid in order to save us from our own ignorance.
Earth - so far the only known world, capable of sustaining life. We have nowhere else to go - at least in the near future. Visit - yes. Colonize - yet. Whether you like it or not - the Earth is our home now.
Say, astronomy instills humility and strengthens character. Perhaps there is no better demonstration of the stupid human conceit than this detached picture of our tiny world. I think it underscores our responsibility, our duty to be kinder to each other, to value and cherish the pale blue dot - our only home.


Video presentation Sagan in Russian translation:



Source: geektimes.ru/post/246034/