Summary of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot - E-book - ePub

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The Voyager 1 spacecraft was sent to explore Saturn in 1981, and in 1990, it took a picture of the Earth as a point of light. The picture was taken from Saturn, so the Earth would appear too small for Voyager to make out any detail. #2 The Earth was seen from a hundred thousand times farther away than ever before, from Saturn in 1981, to Uranus in 1986, to 1989, when both spacecraft had passed the orbits of Neptune and Pluto.
The picture showed us that we are insignificant beings on a insignificant planet. #3 The images of the Earth and five other planets were recorded by the Voyager spacecraft. They were sent back to Earth, and they look like points of light, smeared or unsmeared, depending on the angle of the light beam. The Earth seems to be sitting in a beam of light because of the reflection of sunlight off the spacecraft.
#4 The Earth is a small stage in a vast cosmic arena. We are a tiny part of the universe, and there is no place for us to hide from the vastness of space.