Understanding the significance of being insignificant-Pale Blue Dot

Point to Ponder: 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. — Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

Special Thanks to Bonnie Kao for sharing this very appropriate article for reflection in any time (even more so in current times)

Story Line: Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan

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.

Reflection: 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.

p.s. where did the photo come from?

The above excerpt from Carl Sagan's book Pale Blue Dot was inspired by an image taken, at Sagan's suggestion, by Voyager 1 on 14 February 1990. As the spacecraft was departing our planetary neighborhood for the fringes of the solar system, it turned it around for one last look at its home planet.

Voyager 1 was about 6.4 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) away, and approximately 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane, when it captured this portrait of our world. Caught in the center of scattered light rays (a result of taking the picture so close to the Sun), Earth appears as a tiny point of light, a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size.

Comments

[Sam]

Good reminder for all of us about reality that most of cosmos is empty so we are insignificant as someone inside this speck of blue dot.

[Milan]

Today’s reflection is very humbling.

[Levi's]

My father first introduced me to the writings of Carl Sagan (I remember skimming through "Cosmos" and also "Broca's Brain" on his desk). I developed a great respect for Sagan and his teachings (especially this quoted book "Pale Blue Dot" and "The Demon Haunted World"). He was one of my original "triumvirate of intellectual saints", of my boyhood: Isaac Asimov, Richard Feynman, and Carl Sagan.

Sagan spoke broadly on the historical development and importance of science through the ages...including but not limited to Astronomy, which was his specialty. His early research focused on the atmosphere of Venus, and this contributed to his theory that Venus once enjoyed a more temperate climate, but a runaway greenhouse effect turned it into the hostile environment that exists there today.
https://gizmodo.com/heres-carl-sagans-original-essay-on-the-dangers-of-cl-1481304135
And yet, Sagan predicted that microbial life might still exist on Venus (above the dense clouds of CO2), and recent research seems to confirm it, too.
Sagan, like my other saints Asimov and Feynman, was a master storyteller, and he knew that the science research needs to be weaved into stories that inspire the imagination and the support of the public at large. His Cosmos TV series, and his golden record project, both in collaboration with Ann Druyen, set wonderful examples for all of us working in fields of science and technology.
I was recently involved in a planetarium animation project regarding the Japanese space probe mission Hayabusa-2, and the producers fully understood this need to project a heroic, romantic story, as Sagan and Druyen did.

Regarding the message of Pale Blue Dot, it goes without saying that this is more relevant than ever. It is often our tribal conflicts that can prevent or slow the progress of civilization, even placing our long-term survival in question. Our way forward has to be through mutual respect and choosing peace over war (as much as possible) and rationality/science over falsifiable beliefs and untested assumptions.

[MC-Singapore]

Hope we collectively wake up and treasure our planet and each other.

[ET-Manila]

I think a good moral character is the no.1 asset to have. It's our guide to think deeply what is the right, better way to live in harmony wt ourselves, others ,n wt nature in this beautiful,wonderful Earth of ours ..

[Thomas]

Humility is the only rational response to an understanding of the universe.

[humble warrior]

When you zoom out like that it really puts it into perspective doesn't it... Thank God we hit the planet lottery... thank you for sharing

[Friend since KG]

Let's celebrate our insignificance with mutual kindness. Thanks for sharing! I had seen this so long ago. Enjoyed the revisit.