That’s here. That’s home. That’s us.

The Pale Blue Dot video superimposes Mr. Sagan voice and narration over time lapse footage of Voyager 1 as it traveled out of our solar system. NASA launched Voyager 1 on September 5, 1977, a 722-kilogram (1,592 lb) robotic spacecraft on a mission to study the outer Solar System and eventually interstellar space. After encountering Jupiter in 1979 and the Saturn in 1980, the primary mission was declared complete on November 20, 1980. Voyager 1 was the first space probe to provide detailed images of the two largest planets and their major moons.

Carl Sagan’s legacy still lives through this remake of “Pale Blue Dot” video, one of the most poignant and introspective soliloquy of all times.

Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” video was recently featured in the 2014 American science documentary television series “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey”. The show is a follow-up to the 1980 hit television series “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage”, which was hosted by Carl Sagan on the Public Broadcasting Service and is considered a milestone for scientific documentaries.

The video has a truly poignant and beautiful message about our place in our awesome universe but it comes with an ominous warning as we head towards an uncertain future. The hard truth is that even though we cling to this lump of rock, there’s an urgent need us to appreciate how fragile our existence on Earth is becoming. Increasingly, our world is defined not by our most advanced technology, but by the difference in the lives between those with access to technology and those without, the rich and poor nations of the world.

The “Pale Blue Dot” video underscores the need for us human beings to learn to live together with each other and put aside all these petty little differences. Our planet is not very important for the universe but it is for us. Earth is our home we have to protect it. It would be much easier to do it; if we start thinking like wise and rational thinking beings after all the name of our species is “Homo Sapiens” “Wise (Man) Being”. Should we be visited from outer space, “Wise” would be the last adjective our guests would use to describe the inhabitants of this planet right now.

Brian cox could not have said it better; “Yes, we are an insignificant speck in an infinite universe, but we’re also rare. And because we’re rare we’re valuable. So what are we to do to secure our future? Well, we must learn to value the acquisition of knowledge for its own sake and not just because it grows our economy or allows us to build better bombs. We must also learn to value the human race and take responsibility for our own survival. Why? Because there’s nobody else out to value us or to look after us. And, finally, most important of all, we must educate the next generation in the great discoveries of science. And we must teach them to use the light of reason to banish the darkness of superstition because if we do that then at least there’s a chance that this universe will remain a human one.”

Let’s stop our stupid fights and start working together towards a better future. Let’s Cherish our Pale Blue Dot.

What Mr. Sagan says in this video is truth in its simplest form, without hyperbole or embellishment. Take a second to reflect on it and let it sink in. Look how insignificant, inconsequential and trivial we are in the immenseness of the universe. Hopefully you’ll discover that a united world is the only way to beat the odds stacked against the survival of humans as a species.

Illustrated narration transcript of the Pale Blue Dot.

“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.

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…every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king…

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.

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…and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer…

Our posturing, 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.

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…every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner…

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.”

Pale Blue Dot

This narrow-angle color image of the Earth, dubbed “Pale Blue Dot” is a photograph of planet Earth taken on February 14, 1990, by Voyager 1. From Voyager’s great distance our planet appears as a tiny dot against the vastness of space. Coincidentally, Earth lies right in the center of one of the scattered light rays resulting from taking the image so close to the sun. Voyager 1, which had completed its primary mission and was leaving the Solar System, was commanded by NASA to turn its camera around and take one last photograph of Earth across a great expanse of space, at the request of astronomer and author Carl Sagan.

"Pale Blue Dot" by Voyager 1 - Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

“Pale Blue Dot” by Voyager 1 – Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Earthrise

“Earthrise” Image of the Earth rising over the Moon as seen from Apollo 8, December 24, 1968 - Photo taken by Bill Anders - Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

“Earthrise” Image of the Earth rising over the Moon as seen from Apollo 8, December 24, 1968 – Photo taken by Bill Anders – Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Taken by Apollo 8 crew member Bill Anders on December 24, 1968, while in orbit around the Moon this view of the rising Earth greeted the Apollo 8 astronauts as they came from behind the Moon after the lunar orbit insertion burn. The Earth is about five degrees above the horizon in the photo and the lunar horizon is approximately 780 kilometers from the spacecraft. The width of the photographed area at the lunar horizon is about 175 kilometers. The unnamed surface features in the foreground are near the eastern limb of the Moon as viewed from Earth. On the Earth 240,000 miles away, the sunset terminator bisects Africa.

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