Feb. 12, 2020
More About the ‘Pale Blue Dot’
10 things you might not know about the ‘Pale Blue Dot’ image
Print your very own poster of the ‘Pale Blue Dot’
Learn more about Voyager’s ‘Family Portrait’ of the solar system
For the 30th anniversary of one of the most iconic views from the Voyager mission, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is publishing a new version of the image known as the “Pale Blue Dot.”
The updated image uses modern image-processing software and techniques while respecting the intent of those who planned the image. Like the original, the new color view shows Planet Earth as a single, bright blue pixel in the vastness of space. Rays of sunlight scattered within the camera optics stretch across the scene, one of which happens to have intersected dramatically with Earth.
The view was obtained on Feb. 14, 1990, just minutes before Voyager 1’s cameras were intentionally powered off to conserve power and because the probe — along with its sibling, Voyager 2 — would not make close flybys of any other objects during their lifetimes. Shutting down instruments and other systems on the two Voyager spacecraft has been a gradual and ongoing process that has helped enable their longevity.
[At the original post is a slider object which makes the caption of these two images above make sense ~cr]
This celebrated Voyager 1 view was part of a series of 60 images designed to produce what the mission called the “Family Portrait of the Solar System.” This sequence of camera-pointing commands returned images of six of the solar system’s planets, as well as the Sun. The Pale Blue Dot view was created using the color images Voyager took of Earth.
The popular name of this view is traced to the title of the 1994 book by Voyager imaging scientist Carl Sagan, who originated the idea of using Voyager’s cameras to image the distant Earth and played a critical role in enabling the family portrait images to be taken.
Additional information about the Pale Blue Dot image is available at:
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/536/voyager-1s-pale-blue-dot/
The original Pale Blue Dot and Family Portrait images are available at:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA00452
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA00451
The Voyager spacecraft were built by JPL, which continues to operate both. JPL is a division of Caltech in Pasadena. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more information about the Voyager spacecraft, visit:
Written by Preston Dyches
2020-030
Last Updated: Feb. 12, 2020
Editor: Randal Jackson
And they’re still going!!!
That fact, apart from all the other superlatives about these amazing 1970s probes, is a testament to the competence of the engineers involved in the design & the care of those who built them! Out beyond the heliopause, they are still providing us with valuable information for a little while yet, hopefully.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that the original rear facing camera was inoperable for much of the journey, and Sagan had to keep pushing for years to get NASA to turn the front facing camera so it would take the photo, do I remember that correctly?
In the original image I have trouble seeing the Earth. The reprocessed image loses that point.
… and most of it is virtually empty, which is why we call it…. SPACE. 😜
Statistically, nothing exists.
LOL Especially when you take into account how little of an atom contains anything. The universe consists of mostly nothing!!!!!
The universe consists of mostly quantum mechanics pollution.
Voyager also imaged a mysterious white spot on the dwarf planet Ceres. Forget NASA, though. Here the team from CSI Pasedena found the real content.
That was actually a bar, known as the Ceres Crossroads, from The American Astronaut
When cis lunar space becomes the next “boom town”, I intend to capitalize on it. Every boom town needs infrastructure; hotels, stores, etc. I can’t compete with Bob Bigelow on hotels, or Amazon on stores. So I’ve selected watering holes, as yirgach pointed out. I intend to create the first one in the new boom town of cis lunar space. I’ll call it the Cis Boom Bar.
oh dear
Conversion on back of poster needs editing.
‘This image of Earth is part of a family portrait of our solar system taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft from more than 4 billion miles (6.4 million kilometers) away. The image inspired the title of scientist Carl Sagan’s 1994 book, “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space,” in which he wrote: “Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us.”’
Should be billion Kilometers.
It’s funny how they used that picture to try to claim there isn’t anything special about our planet.
Where’s Mars?
I was thinking it was a pity they couldn’t also get the sun in the frame, but maybe that would have caused over-exposure even if it could have been.
Oh well, we’ve still got The Total Perspective Vortex.
Amazing – interstellar space has a molecular composition identical to the atmosphere on Earth – it scatters blue light! And I thought space was black and the Sun was white,
If the moon were one pixel.
http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html
I was wondering why I can’t see the moon in that pic — maybe too small. IIRC, one of the Mars landers (maybe Curiosity) took a pic of the earth/moon from the Mars’ night sky & the moon was easily visible.
cina ed, the space IS black because it will NEVER stop falling apart under ongoing quantum mechanic pollution mass gain gravity.
The sun is burning yellow, with a slightly higher green share in the RGB / red green blue color catalogue.
cina ed, the space IS black because it will NEVER stop falling apart under ongoing quantum mechanic pollution mass gain gravity: the light gets ever slower to reach us.
The sun is burning yellow, with a slightly higher green share in the RGB / red green blue color catalogue.