In 1989 the Voyager spacecraft had traveled passed Saturn, more than 4 billion miles from Earth (6.4 billion kilometres). Carl Sagan wanted one last picture of Earth from a vantage point that we may never have again.
The picture was taken using a narrow-angle camera at 32° above the ecliptic. Earth takes up less than a single pixel and is only 0.12 pixel in size.
Because of the reflection of sunlight off the spacecraft, the Earth seems to be sitting in a beam of light. However, it's just an accident of geometry and optics. Had the picture been taken a little earlier or a little later there would have been no sunbeam highlighting the Earth.
There are no signs of humans in this picture. No signs of our reworking of the earth's surface, not of our machines, not our buildings, highways, not even of ourselves. From this vantage point, our obsession with nationalism is nowhere in evidence. Humans are an inconsequential, thin film of life on an obscure lump of rock and metal.
"Consider 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 "supreme leader", every "superstar," 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. ... Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand."
There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world ... it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the only home we’ll ever known. The pale blue dot.
--Carl Sagan
Hunting the cache
Please choose your parking space wisely. On the weekends and evenings there nearest parking is a little more then 1/2 mile. During the weak you can park legally a little closer. Please do not park along the road or block any gates or driveways, you will most likely be ticketed by the Homdel PD or Monmouth County Parks.
Enjoy the walk, it's pretty easy and the scenery is diverse and changes quickly, so it's rather enjoyable.
Thanks for caching with us!
This cache is certified Central Jersey
