Pale Blue Dot

A 1990 photograph of Earth captured by Voyager 1 from about six billion kilometers away. The tiny planet appears as a pale blue speck in a sunbeam.

Voyager 1: A NASA spacecraft launched in 1977 to study the outer planets and interstellar space. Its camera captured Earth from the outer Solar System on February 14, 1990.
Voyager Imaging Science Subsystem: The camera system aboard the Voyager spacecraft, composed of narrow-angle and wide-angle television cameras. Its narrow-angle camera recorded the small patch of sky containing Earth.
Pale Blue Dot (book): A 1994 book by Carl Sagan about Earth’s place in the universe and the significance of space exploration. Sagan used the photograph as the book’s title image and central metaphor.
Voyager 1 Pale Blue Dot image: The Voyager 1 photograph of Earth taken on February 14, 1990, from roughly six billion kilometers away. This is the specific frame commonly called the Pale Blue Dot.
Voyager program: A NASA mission comprising the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft, launched in 1977. The photograph came from this program’s planetary exploration mission.
Solar System family portrait: A montage of images of six planets captured by Voyager 1 in 1990. This broader image set includes the frame known as the Pale Blue Dot.
Pale Blue Dot speech: A passage by Carl Sagan reflecting on Earth’s smallness in a Voyager photograph. The passage articulates the image’s best-known humanistic interpretation.
Family Portrait (NASA photograph): A NASA mosaic assembled from Voyager 1 images of six planets, including Earth. Its Earth frame supplied the image that became the Pale Blue Dot.
Carl Sagan: An American astronomer and science communicator who studied planetary science and the search for extraterrestrial life. He advocated for the image and later gave it its enduring interpretation.
Rayleigh scattering: The scattering of light by particles much smaller than its wavelength, with shorter wavelengths scattered more strongly. Scattered sunlight created the bright streak across which Earth appears.

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