The Pale Blue Dot

...But, Carl Sagan convinced them to turn Voyager back to Earth and take a final picture.

So on Valentine's Day, 1990, one of the ships slowly rotated so it was facing back to Earth, and it snapped a picture.

One last picture...

Describe it.

So...it's mostly empty. It's pretty dark. You can see sort of streaks of light coming from the sun, and then, you honestly wouldn't notice it if wasn't pointed out to you, but down in one corner... kind of suspended in a sunbeam, there is a very small dot...blue...a pale blue dot...that was us.

In Carl Sagan's words, "Everyone you ever knew, everyone you ever loved, every superstar, every corrupt politician, just everyone in all of history, everything, the sum total...Think of the rivers of blood that have run so that one indistinguishable group could have momentary domination over a fraction of that pixel.."

Every single day I hear from people who take that pale blue dot so deeply to heart.

It was a complete reframing.

After that, the cameras were turned off.

- from Radiolab's story, Is There an Edge to the Heavens?, in the Escape! episode