Pale Blue Dot
Photographer: Voyager 1 (NASA/JPL)
Date: February 14, 1990
Location: ~6 billion km from Earth
On February 14, 1990, at the request of astronomer Carl Sagan, NASA commanded the Voyager 1 spacecraft — which had completed its primary mission and was heading out of the solar system — to turn its camera back toward the inner solar system and photograph Earth one final time. Earth appears as a tiny point of light, less than a pixel in size, suspended in a sunbeam scattered by the camera lens. Sagan's subsequent reflection — 'Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us.' — became one of the most quoted passages in popular science. The photograph was taken from approximately 6 billion kilometers away, the most distant portrait of Earth ever made. It is now part of the permanent collection of the Library of Congress.
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