A Pause to Reflect

One from the famous 'The Blue Marble' series of photographs taken

of Earth while the Apollo 17 mission was on its way to the Moon

(photo credit: NASA)

 

Though we're not yet half way into the eclipse season, seeing as there was nothing new and entirely 'major' on the celestial horizon I thought this would be a good moment to post this link.

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Carl Sagan: The Pale Blue Dot

'The Pale Blue Dot' is an iconic piece of video. It makes the rounds of the internet now and again and this time showed up in my email box courtesy of a friend in the UK who had received it as a thoughtful sort of way of celebrating the fact that as of about a month ago, NASA's Voyager spacecraft has left our solar system.

One thousand five hundred and ninety pounds (722 kg) of Earth's essence is on its way to somewhere else. It will take thousands of years to get there and by that time human beings will have surely figured out how to traverse space in a far more effective manner than we do now.

If we haven't killed each other off, that is.

And that brings me back to Sagan's quiet if touching commentary on what it means to be a human being living on our Earth.

If you haven't ever seen the video, it's a couple of minutes long and well worth it. The link is of the Youtube variety, so you'll be able to skip the ad about 10 seconds after it starts.

After that, what enters your mind and soul is all about you.

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