Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Pale Blue Dot


This is the picture of our planet Earth.  There is a ‘pale blue dot’ that you can see on the right side of the picture somewhere in the middle from top to bottom. - that's our planet Earth.   The picture was taken by Voyager 1 spacecraft that was launched in 1977.   It left Solar System in 1990.  Carl Sagan made a special request to NASA to turn the camera around and take this picture of Earth.  The band of light is result of play of sunlight off the spacecraft onto the camera, an accident.

When this picture was taken, the spacecraft was 6 Billion kilometers away from us.


Carl Sagan writes in his book ‘Pale Blue Dot’:

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of 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.

You can hear Carl Sagan here.

11 comments:

  1. When I saw this some time back in some other site, I was thinking about the same till late night. So much of history o n this tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny .......................... dust particle in this big big big big very big....universe.

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  2. so,you must understand that we are so small in the universe,probably equal to 0/oo,isnt it sujai.

    then is it right to comment and pain others for nothing.

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  3. I'm really straining to see where our Telangana is on the picture.

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  4. Hi Sujai:
    I have been reading your blog for the last 3 hours now, going through each article, one by one. Though I do not agree with all your opinions,but hey, everyone is entitled to their opinion.The fact that I liked most is that you are a non-conformist, someone like me.

    Could you also write a post on how plagiarism in Indian movies is the norm nowadays, people accept it as if it were normal. It is shameful that there are people respecting the directors, the actors who, even in the age of the internet, do not even care to give due credit to the original piece.
    Would love to see your opinion on this, thanks. sorry if you have already posted on this, but I discovered your blog just a little while ago.

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  5. abey oye.. anonymous...
    Indians invented "ZERO"
    Do they give credit to indians wheny they count money , dial phone no. , use computer, date a girl????
    Then why should we give credit to them?????

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  6. @@@boy_go_fast

    You are a moron, may be u even think that Indian sacred texts mentioned about nuclear bombs, had blue prints for aero planes and bull shit like that. and dont forget chess.
    These is no definite historical or scientific proof for any of it.

    I saw in some stupid movie akshay kumar explaining that Sanskrit is mother of all languages including english.
    By showing some etymolgical derivations, the truth is sanskrit is not the oldest language,

    I dont think india will ever catchup with west in scientific innovation after all creativity is scorned upon i India.

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  7. Now i believe the existence of God

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  8. I think this post is targetted for "settlers".
    It means you don't just needs to target Telengana and probably U.S for "settling".
    There are billions of Planets outta there ,may be some good for settling,
    you just needs to stick your neck out, and make Rocket out of looted wealth(sorry...hard earned wealth) and zzzzooooommmmmmmm......
    Here we go boy!

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  9. Ultracool_bad-assNovember 19, 2010 8:18 PM

    Some fucking guy was walking by drinking a beer and acting all "S M U G" so I tossed a jar of pickles at him and it hit an old lady and knocked her out so I robbed her and found a live cat in her purse, the cat was overweight with a top hat smoking a cuban and told me to not bother him as he was reading the newspaper and wanted peace and quiet, i called him a fag and he tried to pistol whip me, got arrested and did two years in the pound with his great aunt sally who cant believe you read this.

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  10. @@Ashok said...

    """Ashok said...
    Relax all my telugu people, Andhra Pradesh will be united for ever and ever.

    Don't underestimate the political skills of telugu people. Sonia doesn't have the guts even to expel first time MP like Jagan, do you think she will even dare to split AP??

    In the end, all these separatists will be tagged as "Terrorists" and will be terminated. Where was the TG demand when YSR was alive?? OU JAC students would have been chased to death had YSR been alive? These separatists were celebrating Bathukamma festivals in their bathrooms when YSR was alive??

    No one can stop the MAD Dogs from barking. So funny, "When YSR-the King was alive, no TG agitation...........After the demise YSR, every DOG is behaving like a MAD Dog"

    Do not take these MAD Dogs threats seriously, they will not dare to harm Andhra people in Hyderabad. Even if one Andhra person is harmed in Hyd, all the union government investments in Seemandhra will be burnt to ashes. These actions in Seemandhra will force the central government to shoot these MAD Dogs in Hyderabad and protect andhra people in Hyd.

    These MAD Dogs really don't know how to survive in the real world, so its better for them to die through this TG movement.
    November 11, 2010 12:20 AM """

    Keka Pettinchav anna....
    Andaroo kalasi develope chesukunna hyd ni veellokkalle dobbeddam anukuntunnaru....
    If they want telangana...both andhra n TG shoud start counting from Zero.Andhra n TG should build our own capitals.appudu telisipoddi evadiki enta dammundo...

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  11. appudu telisipoddi evadiki enta dammundo...
    అంటే, హైదరాబాదు లేకపోతె మీకు దిక్కు లేదన్న మాట, ఇంకో రాజధాని చేసుకునే దమ్ము లేదన్న మాట.

    Andaroo kalasi develope chesukunna hyd ni veellokkalle dobbeddam anukuntunnaru....
    ఆంధ్ర , తెలంగాణా కలయిక తరువాత ఇటు పక్క హైదరాబాదు మాత్రమె డెవలప్ అయినది, అటు పక్క విజయవాడ, గుంటూరు, తిరుపతి, వైజాగు ,కాకినాడ ఇలా చాల అబివృద్ది చేసుకున్నారు కదా? అయిన, కలయికకు ముందు హైదరాబాదు ఇండియాలో అయిదవ పెద్ద నగరం, ఇప్పుడు ఆరవ పెద్ద నగరం అందులో డెవలప్ అయినది ఏంటి?

    Andaroo kalasi develope chesukunna hyd ni veellokkalle dobbeddam anukuntunnaru....
    మరి మీరు అందరు కలసి డెవలప్ చేసుకున్న మద్రాసును ఎర్రి మొకం వేసుకొని వదులుకున్నప్పుడు ఏమయినది ఆ కేక?

    ReplyDelete

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