Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan

[azmouse]

This may be the best thing Carl Sagan ever wrote. It never fails to touch me.
It also reminds me to keep fighting to make this world a better place for all humans.




Earth, taken from Voyager I in 1990

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human who ever was, loved 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 here – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a 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 the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits that this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

Carl Sagan

[livetohike]

1. I miss him

There is no one that I can think of who is taking his place. He was quite a teacher.

[azmouse]

3. Me too.

The world could sure use him and his knowledge today with science under attack from the fundies.

[Mutley]

2. Ha! Check out my sigline.

Coincidence? I think not!

[azmouse]

4. Ya know, I may have to start reading those things.

I can safely assume that you are a Sagan fan too!

[Mutley]

6. Oh yes.

I've read several of his books and lectures, and I've taped all the Cosmos episodes when they were playing on The Science Channel. :blush:

[livetohike]

5. Very cool!

:toast:

[Mutley]

7. Thanks.

:toast:

[wildhorses]

8. okay. so I don't get it...the dot in the center of the pic..

looks white to me:shrug:






of course I see lots of little blue dots all around it...

[azmouse]

9. Probably the quality of this photo

It looks bluish in other pics I've seen.

[wildhorses]

10. thanks for claryifying

:hi:

[Atmashine]

11. Eek.

It's even creepier farther away.



From:
http://www.bigskyastroclub.org/pale_blue_dot.htm

[Mutley]

12. Creepy? I think it's amazing, astonishing, and stunningly beautiful.

:)