Pale Blue Dot
This photograph of planet Earth taken on February 14, 1990, by the Voyager 1 space probe from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers. In the photograph, Earth's apparent size is less than a pixel; the planet appears as a tiny dot against the vastness of space, among bands of sunlight reflected by the camera. NASA launched Voyager 1 in 1977 to study the outer Solar System and eventually interstellar space. The spacecraft, still travelling at 64,000 km/h (40,000 mph), is the most distant human-made object from Earth and the first one to leave the Solar System. Operating for 42 years, 9 months and 22 days as of today (28 June 2020), it receives routine commands and transmits data back to the Deep Space Network. The following quote by Carl Sagan summarizes the beauty of the experience in this wonderful passage. "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, eve