If you have seen the Pale Blue Dot image of Earth, you may have always wondered about the inspiring story behind it. The Pale Blue Dot is simply an image of Earth captured by NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft on Feb. 14, 1990. However, we would not have seen such an inspiring image if not for the renowned scientist Carl Sagan. You are about to discover how the most traveled spacecraft of our time took this breathtaking image in the early 1990s.
Carl Sagan’s Role in the Pale Blue Dot Image of Earth
When NASA was founded in 1958, Carl Sagan was one of the leading scientists advising NASA on the right path to succeed in most of its missions. Even before the famous Apollo astronauts left for the moon, Sagan briefed them and gave them instructions.
As a visiting scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Sagan assisted the American Space Agency in building its Mariner 2 mission to Venus. He also played a major role in building Mariner 9, Viking 1, and Viking 2 space missions to Mars.
In the 1970s, when NASA preparing for something more fascinating, Sagan helped the agency to plan and develop the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 missions that are currently exploring beyond the Solar system. After the launch of the twin space probes in 1977, Sagan joined the Voyager Imagining Team.
In 1981, he came up with the idea of capturing the image of Earth from a great distance using the cameras of one of the two Voyager spacecraft. However, Sagan became unhappy when he learned that the two spacecraft were too far away to capture a clear image of Earth from such a great distance.
But he never gave up on his original idea. Carl Sagan convinced other members of the Voyager team about the need to capture Earth from such a great distance no matter the outcome. They collectively intended to show humans how tiny our home planet is from a distance.
How The Voyager 1 Spacecraft Captured The Pale Blue Dot
In the early 1990s, NASA engineers were getting ready to turn off the Voyager 1 camera systems to save power. However, they still have to grant the one request of the renowned scientist Carl Sagan before switching the power off.
On Feb. 13, 1990, the Voyager 1 spacecraft prepared its cameras for about three hours to take its last shot. After the warm-up, NASA engineers pointed the cameras toward Neptune and commenced with the observations.
After capturing Neptune, the spacecraft captured fascinating images of Uranus, Saturn, Mars, and the Sun, before it took images of Jupiter, Earth, and Venus. The Voyager 1 spacecraft took the image of Earth at exactly 04:48 GMT on Feb. 14, 1990, from 3.7 billion miles away from the Sun.
34 minutes after capturing the famous Pale Blue Dot image, the Voyager 1 switched off its cameras forever and commenced with the journey into the unknown. However, after capturing these breathtaking images, NASA engineers on Earth did not receive them immediately.
In fact, they had to stay until May 1, 1990, before four separate communications that contained all the image data arrived at NASA’s Deep Space Networks on Earth. These images include Voyager 1 images of six out of seven targeted planets and also the image of the Sun. These images are collectively referred to as the family portrait of the Solar System.
Carl Sagan was amazed with the mindblowing shot and he referred to it as the Pale Blue Bot in his book titled, “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space.” Sagan described the image as ‘that’s home from a distance’. Carl Sagan also wrote how everyone that has ever existed in human history lived only in the Pale Blue Dot.
How This Image Is Reshaping Our Mindset About The Future of Humans on Earth and Among the Stars
Carl Sagan was one of the top scientists who contributed to the development and launching of the Voyager 1 spacecraft that captured Earth from such a great distance. Sagan revealed that the image shows Earth’s vulnerabilities among the cosmic endless ocean. He also noted that humans should be curious to explore and see what lies outside our home planet.
The Voyager 1 spacecraft, now exploring Interstellar space captured some of the planets in the solar system and shut down its cameras at exactly 05:22 GMT, on Feb. 14, 1990. The most traveled spacecraft left the solar system in August 2012 and flew into interstellar space.
Since then, it has continued to explore great distances and continue to communicate with mission control on Earth. The Pale Blue Dot that the spacecraft captured shows Earth as a tiny dot that lies within a scattered ray of the sun.
Both the present generation and our descendants will surely derive inspiration from this shot to look beyond our home planet and travel great distances to see what awaits humankind. What do you think about the breathtaking view of the Pale Blue Dot?
