Pale Blue Dot

[GMDino]

Today (2/14/20) is the 30th anniversary of the Voyager I photo made famous by Carl Sagan in the book of the same name.

As an admitted space geek when I was younger (I read this and Cosmos multiple times too) I thought I'd put my reflection on it here as it speaks to our "differences".



Today is Valentine's Day.


And while many of us celebrate our devotion and emotions for that one special person in our lives let us also use this occasion to mark the 30th anniversary of the famous "Pale Blue Dot" photo of the Earth and remember that we are nothing in the scope of space and we should also have devotion and emotions for each and every other human being who shares this speck with us no matter their color, religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation or any other reason.



Our "big" differences and nothing compared to where we are in the Universe.


We are ALL in this together, for just a little while, on just a little piece of dirt in the middle of nowhere.


Be good to each other. Today and everyday.






Video of Carl Sagan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g


Sagan's words from the book of the same name:

Quote:"Look again at 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.

[Dill]

(02-14-2020, 11:00 AM)GMDino Wrote: Today (2/14/20) is the 30th anniversary of the Voyager I photo made famous by Carl Sagan in the book of the same name.

As an admitted space geek when I was younger (I read this and Cosmos multiple times too) I thought I'd put my reflection on it here as it speaks to our "differences".

Our "big" differences and nothing compared to where we are in the Universe.

I remember my parents had a copy of the Cosmos. Don't know what happened to it.

Disagree with your assessment of our differences though.  Trump presidency is a COSMIC disaster.