156: Pale Blue Dot Today

If you’ve never heard Carl Sagan’s spoken essay Pale Blue Dot, you’ll get to hear it in today’s episode. It still chokes me up.

Here is an Earthrise image taken a few years ago like those he contrasts the pale blue dot image with.

Read the transcript.

Earthrise — The Earth straddling the limb of the Moon, as seen from above Compton crater. Taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2015.

Here is the Pale Blue Dot image.

Pale Blue Dot — Seen from about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles), Earth appears as a tiny dot (the blueish-white speck approximately halfway down the brown band to the right) within the darkness of deep space.