On the 30th anniversary of the “Pale Blue Dot” image, the US space organisation, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) commemorated this feat as it re-released the iconic image.
The image which was taken by NASA’s Voyager has been remastered and no other space object can be seen in the image other than our planet “Earth” which appears to be a tiny blue pixel suspended in a sunbeam.
Carolyn Porco and Carl Sagan were the imaging scientists who were working on the Voyager mission and took this image just moments before they shut down the camera to save power.
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us.” — Carl Sagan
— NASA (@NASA) February 12, 2020
A newly processed version of the iconic ‘Pale Blue Dot’ image shows Earth 4 billion miles away from @NASAVoyager.
Learn more: https://t.co/xU9HhrK4xa
Print the poster: https://t.co/HShxS2673m pic.twitter.com/Ua21xDoJZc
According to the NASA’s website, the Voyager took 60 pictures in total in order to generate a “solar system family portrait”. Sagan had to push for the photo to be taken as the other members in the Voyager team argued that there was no point in taking the photo as it will not provide any scientific data.
However, Sagan and some other members of the team thought it would be necessary to have visuals to should how vulnerable Earth is when compared to the size of the universe. They wanted people on Earth to know just how small we are in the grand scheme.
Sagan succeeded and we got the “Pale Blue Dot”.
