The Pale Blue Dot - Our planet Earth

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

35 years ago, NASA’s Voyager 1 took this iconic image of Earth and the Moon in a single frame. The Voyager itself celebrated its 35th birthday last week.


http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegal ... e_601.html

This image of the Earth and moon in a single frame, the first of its kind ever taken by a spacecraft, was recorded on Sept. 18, 1977, by Voyager 1 when it was 7.25 million miles from Earth. The moon is at the top of the picture and beyond the Earth as viewed by Voyager.

In the picture are eastern Asia, the western Pacific Ocean and part of the Arctic. Voyager 1 was directly above Mt. Everest (on the night side of the planet at 25 degrees north latitude) when the picture was taken.

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This next image of Earth was taken by Voyager 1 from about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles), Earth appears as a tiny dot (the blueish-white speck approximately halfway down the brown band to the right) within the darkness of deep space. Carl Sagan named it "The Pale Blue Dot"


The image above is rotated and cropped from the wide angled image below


The wide-angle image containing the sun and the region of space where the Earth and Venus were at the time, inset with two narrow-angle pictures, each centered on one planet.


The approximate location of Voyager 1 while the photograph was taken is shown in green


Sagan pointed out that "all of human history has happened on that tiny pixel (shown here inside a blue circle), which is our only home" (speech at Cornell University, October 13, 1994.)

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Consider that the Voyager is now heading out of our own solar system, a tiny solar system in comparison to others in our own Galaxy. Our Galaxy is called the Milky Way and the image below demonstrates our size where we are located in our Galaxy - our sun alone is visible as just a dot in the backwaters



Each dot and disc in the background of that image is another Galaxy making up only part of our entire Universe.

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This is the earth seen from the edge of our small solar system


In his book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, astronomer Carl Sagan related his thoughts on a deeper meaning of the photograph:

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again 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 being who ever was, lived 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 there – 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 than 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, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, 1997 reprint, pp. xv–xvi

[Rory Phoulorie]

In before the Trekkie fans' V'Ger jokes.

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

^ let us not confuse science with science fiction.

[Dizzy28]

My mind is blown!!

[Sky]

Each dot and disc in the background of that image is another Galaxy making up only part of our entire Universe.

Each dot and disc in the background of that image is another Galaxy making up only part of our entire Universe.




So who took that picture?

[Mark!]

I did

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

^ that image is an artist's impression based on images taken by telescopes such as observatories on earth and Hubble etc.

Hubble has taken this photo of a pair of interacting galaxies far away from our own


and this is a photo taken by Hubble of the middle of our own galaxy. It is pretty dense there.

[MG Man]

the earth's a big blue marble when you see it from up there

[stev]

i remember reading once that a lot of stars (possible solar systems) tend to concentrate near the centre of the galaxy hence the reason for it being dense (pic above)....this brought about the theory oh black holes at the centre of galaxies.

thinking of voyager 1 & 2 makes me sad cuz i dont think anyone today would be alive by the time it reaches anywhere close to another star / solar system in our galaxy. ...yet alone retransmit something..... wouldn't be a pic self cuz i know they shut down the cameras on board long ago.

edit: Official voyager thread merge?

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=459241&hilit=voyager

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=425988&hilit=voyager

[dok_tec]

and this is a photo taken by Hubble of the middle of our own galaxy. It is pretty dense there.

that is actually a combined picture of a series of the 100's of pictures taken over a long time like 2 weeks or so called a deep field pic....not just one picture taken instantaneously.

[MG Man]

I think Duane was just too lazy to say all that.........in the world of 'knows much', they made Duane King Mayor Jefe for life

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

and this is a photo taken by Hubble of the middle of our own galaxy. It is pretty dense there.

that is actually a combined picture of a series of the 100's of pictures taken over a long time like 2 weeks or so called a deep field pic....not just one picture taken instantaneously.

yup, the light is so faint that very long exposure and different exposures need to be combined to make an image like this

I wanted to show the scale of the earth in relation to our solar system, galaxy and universe by using images from the Voyager 1 spacecraft.

[mero]

this picture and quote always reminds me of how small and insignificant we are

[sharkman121]

Schweett.... i <3 Astrology

[Prototype-Tuner]

Just watch through the wormhole series

its on justin.tv

[brams112]

Nice information here.

[White CZ4A]

Never saw this before.

Really amazing!

[X2]

How is it that Earth is the only planet that can be seen in the voyager pic ?

[sMASH]

u all sure that that pic is the hubble deep field image? i've seen a lot of documentaries, and i mean a lot since i've discovered streaming and had a lot of time home away from work this year, and none showed it to be like that. but effectively, it gives the same idea.

the most outstanding picture noted by both scientists and artists (what i have heard in the documentaries) is the one where voyager takes the picture of saturn while it eclipses the sun.
the dread ting is, saturn was translucent, in the well cropped image.


the voyager 1 and 2 are on a mission right now as they are still alive. some of the scientists on it jokingly say that this is the key mission and the original they sent it to do was just on-the-way missions.
they were also contemplating turning on the cameras one last time as it might be the only time in the significant future that it might be possible to capture an image from that perspective. i believe that the idea got turned down, due to the complexities and the power.


but voyager was always entrancing. watching it on sesame street with out understanding any thing, and still being amazed and captivated. to get older and actually fathom what it was about, and realize that is trying to provide answers to some of the biggest things we can try to answer, is quite awesome. one of, few infant pedestals that got bigger with time and knowledge, and not thrown off.

[stev]

How is it that Earth is the only planet that can be seen in the voyager pic ?

planets are too far apart and have different orbits to have them in one shot.....voyager 1 hasn't even reach a distance where it can get a full solar system shot.....and even then, we wont be able to see earth or most of the other planets from that distance.

[Cooper]

Great Post!

I wish more people will read this one and come to realise how lucky we are!







on a lighter note...
In my head I was picturing a cylon bay ship orbiting earth in the first pic

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

Schweett.... i <3 Astrology

what?

[stev]

bump!!!

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home.”

These were the words of iconic astronomer Carl Sagan in describing the Pale Blue Dot photograph, a distant portrait of our planet as taken by Voyager 1. Seen from roughly 6 billion kilometers away, Earth is visible only as a small dot hanging in the darkness of deep space.

On July 19th, Cassini will have the opportunity to take a photograph of similar magnitude. As the orbiter turns to image Saturn and its entire ring system during a total eclipse of the sun, Earth will be in position to make a special appearance.

While attempts of a similar nature have been attempted since the Pale Blue Dot image was first taken in 1990, this attempt will be what Carolyn Porco, now a team leader on the Cassini project, describes as “an image of the highest resolution we are capable of taking.”

The Cassini portrait session of Earth, coined as ‘The Day The Earth Smiled’, will last about 15 minutes from 2:27 to 2:42 p.m. PDT (21:27 to 21:42 UTC).

To read more about Cassini, the photograph, and ‘The Day The Earth Smiled’:
http://goo.gl/K2L7U
http://goo.gl/hc80P
http://goo.gl/iR7O5

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

^ really looking forward to seeing that photo

How is it that Earth is the only planet that can be seen in the voyager pic ?

had posted this earlier

DISTANCE FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON






The moon is 384,400 km away from the earth.
The minimum distance from the Earth to Mars is about 54.6 million kilometers. The farthest apart they can be is about 401 million km. The average distance is about 225 million km.

When things are so far apart it is difficult to get them all in one photo without them being almost invisible specs.

[X2]

The world is too big...

[Garrett Inside]

Then make it small....

[sharkman121]

Schweett.... i <3 Astrology

what?

i said i <3 AstroNOMY

[RedTiger]

The world is too big...

Travel outside of T&T ( Europe, USA, Asia ) and you will realize that WE are so insignificant . Then come back to TT, read newspapers and see how many (not all) Trinis are chasing pure nonsense.
It makes you think if we are really alone ..

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

FOX is bringing a reboot of the COSMOS series started by Carl Sagan. it will be hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sagan's protege.



It's co-produced by Seth-MacFarlane.

[stev]

definitely must see!!!!

i wonder if Cassini took the picture on July 19th....probably being processed at the moment.