• Give
• Renew Membership
• Support A Project
• Shop to Support
• Travel
• Other Ways to Give
• The Planetary Fund
Accelerate progress in our three core enterprises — Explore Worlds, Find Life, and Defend Earth. You can support the entire fund, or designate a core enterprise of your choice. Give Today
Back To Main Menu
• About Us
• Overview
• Strategic Framework
• News & Press
• Careers
• Contact Us
• Our Story
• The Planetary SocietyOur Vision
Know the cosmos and our place within it.
Our Mission
Empowering the world's citizens to advance space science and exploration.
Back To Main Menu
• Membership
• Become A Member
• Renew Membership
• Gift Membership
• Kids Membership
• Other Ways to Give
• Contact Us
• Our Work
• Explore Space
• Take Action
• Member Community
• About
• Membership
• Account Center
• Search
•
• “Exploration is in our nature.” - Carl Sagan
•
•
A Pale Blue Dot
The following 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. ![The Pale Blue Dot of Earth](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns=%27http://www.w3.org/2000/svg%27 width=%27453%27 height=%27614%27 style=%27background:%23CCC%27 /%3E)
The Pale Blue Dot of Earth "That's here. That's Home. That's us."Image: NASA / JPL (View Highlight)