carl sagan essay pale blue dot

Reason and Meaning

Philosophical reflections on life, death, and the meaning of life, carl sagan’s pale blue dot.

The astronomer Carl Sagan is one of my intellectual heroes , and one of the great secularists of the twentieth century.  In 1989, after both  Voyager  spacecraft had passed Neptune and Pluto, Sagan wanted a last picture of Earth from “a hundred thousand times” as far away as the famous shots of Earth taken by the Apollo astronauts. No photo has ever put the human condition in better perspective; it is worth seeing and hearing at least once a year for the rest of one’s life. Thank you, Carl Sagan.

“Look 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 “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” 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 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. 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.

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. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

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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.

Look 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 "superstar," every "supreme leader," 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. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known. — Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot , 1994 Copyright © 1994 by Carl Sagan, Copyright © 2006 by Democritus Properties, LLC. All rights reserved including the rights of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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Carl Sagan Unveils the Pale Blue Dot Carl Sagan, Planetary Society co-founder, unveils the Pale Blue Dot image at a press conference on the Voyager missions in 1990.

Earth was not the only world Voyager 1 imaged. The spacecraft also captured views of Venus , Jupiter , Saturn , Uranus , and Neptune . Mercury and Mars were lost in the Sun's glare.

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Carl Sagan and His Famous ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Speech (1994) 9 min read

Table of Contents

Introduction

A. background.

While watching a video or two from Neil deGrasse Tyson ( one of which I recently posted: Video: Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Keynote Speech for the 28th National Space Symposium (2012) ) I saw a lecture from Carl Sagan in the sidebar, so I decided to give the original Cosmos narrator’s wisdom a spin. I was not at all disappointed. In there was his original Pale Blue Dot speech which is what I want to point you to below.

Now, as far as people are concerned, I do consider Carl Sagan amazing, gifted, and prophetic. He is a powerful and gifted speaker, and a prolific author who was able to explain more complicated concepts so that people can understand them. He is also Neil deGrasse Tyson’s personal mentor and hero too. I wondered where Neil gets his ability to explain complex concepts from! =)

B. Read More

• Carl Sagan (Wikipedia)
• The Carl Sagan Portal
• Carl Sagan (Good Reads)

I. The Video: Carl Sagan’s 1994 “Lost” Lecture: The Age of Exploration

So, here is that amazing lecture that he gave at the University of Cornell: Carl Sagan’s 1994 “Lost” Lecture: The Age of Exploration (1:36:00) . The total video is 1 hour and 36 minutes long. The first hour is his speech, the very last part of which is the famous Pale Blue Dot speech . The last half and hour or so is a Question & Answer session which is still very interesting.

Here are some of the 4 major sections of the video in case you want to skip around a bit:

• Introduction (00:00:00)
• Carl Sagan’s Main Speech (00:05:15)
• Pale Blue Dot Speech (1:02:30)
• Question and Answer Session (01:05:57)

…although I will post the Pale Blue Dot part in the next section for further use. Here is the full video of his lecture:

II. Carl Sagan’s Famous Pale Blue Dot Speech

A. genesis of the pale blue dot picture.

The Pale Blue Dot photo was taken by the Voyager I probe at the request of Carl Sagan who convinced NASA that the photo was worth the cost even if it had no scientific value. The picture, he said, would show us “ our place in the universe “. Many people opposed attempting to take the picture because of technical reasons such as: pointing back at the Sun may damage the imager in the interplanetary probe, but thanks to the tenacity of Carl and his supporters, such as NASA Administrator Richard Truly, Voyager I was adjusted in to attempt to take the picture for Carl and for posterity.

On February 14, 1990 , while on its way out of the Solar System, Voyager I turned around to take a photo of Earth. It took this picture from 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles) away. You can kinda see Earth there on the right side in that orangish verticalish band. In there is that slightly lighter speck – that tiny pale blue dot, or as Carl put it “ a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam “. This is one of the most powerful photos ever taken.

• Pale Blue Dot (Wikipedia)

B. The Pale Blue Dot Speech

Here is a link to the Pale Blue Dot section of his speech ( video below ).

C. Transcript of the ‘Pale Blue Dot’ Speech

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again 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 “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” 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. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known. Carl Saga’s famous Pale Blue Dot speech given at Cornell University in 1994

D. Readings of the Pale Blue Dot Speech

• Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot,” as read by Neil deGrasse Tyson
• Pale Blue Dot (from the finale of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey)

III. Pale Blue Dot, the Book

Carl Sagan had also published a book with the title of ‘Pale Blue Dot’:

• Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space by Carl Sagan (Amazon)

Although, here is the audio book read by Carl Sagan himself on YouTube:

IV. Cosmos, the Series

A. cosmos with carl sagan.

Airing from September to December in 1980, the original series of Cosmos: A Personal Voyage by Carl Sagan’s had only 1 season and 13 episodes to it.

You can watch the: full Cosmos series series here on the Star Stuff channel on YouTube :

B. Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey also had 1 season and 13 episodes . Thankfully, a second season is planned for later in 2019 and it has moved from Netflix to National Geographic. The first season is available for pay on:

• and other places.

My daughter and I have watched this series quite a few times while it was on Netflix. I am deeply saddened that it has moved and we no longer have access to it. =(

C. Only 2 or 3 Seasons of Cosmos?

There is the a wonderful meme that pops through Facebook every so often that kind of explains how I feel about America, as broken as it is, having only having 2 seasons of Cosmos:

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A Pale Blue Dot

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Iconic ‘pale blue dot’ photo – Carl Sagan’s idea – turns 30

By blaine friedlander.

In the pantheon of famous self-portraits, this one is less than a pixel – and it is us.

The iconic photograph of planet Earth from distant space – the “pale blue dot” – was taken 30 years ago – Feb. 14, 1990, at a distance of 3.7 billion miles, by the NASA spacecraft Voyager 1 as it zipped toward the far edge of the solar system. The late Cornell astronomy professor Carl Sagan came up with the idea for the snapshot, and coined the phrase.

“The Pale Blue Dot image shows our world as both breathtakingly beautiful and fragile, urging us to take care of our home,” said Lisa Kaltenegger, associate professor of astronomy and director of Cornell’s  Carl Sagan Institute .

“We are living in an amazing time,” she said, “where for the first time ever we have the technical means to spot worlds orbiting other stars. Could one of them be another pale blue dot, harboring life? That is what we are trying to find out at the Carl Sagan Institute.”

The iconic “pale blue dot” photograph of planet Earth, which was taken Feb. 14, 1990 by NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, from a distance of 3.7 billion miles. Now 30 years later, Voyager 1 is nearly 14 billion miles away.

NASA’s Voyager 1 launched on Sept. 5, 1977, to explore the solar system and beyond. The spacecraft flew past Jupiter on March 5, 1979, and by Saturn on Nov. 12, 1980. A decade later, it was time for a solar system family portrait.

Sagan, part of Voyager’s imaging team, is credited with the idea of having Voyager 1 take images of Earth and its sibling planets. Sagan knew the picture would render Earth as just a dot of light, but as stated on the NASA website, the Voyager team “wanted humanity to see Earth’s vulnerability and that our home world is just a tiny, fragile speck in the cosmic ocean.”

On Feb. 13, 1990, NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers sent commands to Voyager 1 to face Earth in order to get the photo. A day later, three Earth-as-a-dot images were taken – then NASA shut down Voyager 1’s camera permanently, to conserve energy for the rest of its decadeslong mission.

Downloading the images took several weeks: The final download occurred May 1, 1990, via NASA’s Deep Space Network.

As of Feb. 14, the elapsed mission time for the Voyager 1 spacecraft is 42 years, five months and 10 days. The craft is about 13.8 billion miles from Earth and traveling at 38,000 miles per hour. NASA and the JPL still keeps tabs on it; the next check will be Feb. 16.

“Look 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.” Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan

In addition to conceptualizing the famed photo, Sagan was one of the creators of the  Golden Record  – a 12-inch, gold-covered copper disc, carrying an interstellar message – aboard Voyager 1 and the spacecraft’s sibling, Voyager 2. Ann Druyan, Sagan’s widow and a Peabody and Emmy award-winning writer and producer, served as creative director of Voyager’s Interstellar Message.

In their 1994 book, “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space,” Druyan and Sagan took a poetic and holistic view of Earth – as a tiny speck, a pixel – in the famed photo.

“Look again at that dot,” they wrote. “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 ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.”

30 years ago, Carl Sagan requested the Voyager 1 spacecraft take one last picture of Earth. This is the legacy of the Pale Blue Dot.

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Carl Sagan: Cosmos, Pale Blue Dot & famous quotes

A biography of renowned astronomer Carl Sagan

Life on the pale blue dot

• Making science interesting
• Sagan's books and media career
• Carl Sagan quotes and book excerpts

Further Reading

Astronomer Carl Sagan, called "America's most effective salesman of science" by Time magazine, spent much of his career translating technical scientific explanations into something easily digestible by the general public. As a natural teacher, Sagan educated people not only through classroom lectures but also through interviews and television shows. His 13-part TV series, "Cosmos," has been seen by over 600 million people in more than 60 countries. The show was so popular that it returned to television in 2005. [See also our overview of Famous Astronomers and great scientists from many fields who have worked in astronomy.] 

Carl Edward Sagan was born on Nov. 9, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York. He attended college at the University of Chicago, where he earned his Ph.D. in astronomy and astrophysics in 1960, at the age of 26.

After completing postdoctoral work, he taught at Harvard University. When that school declined to grant Sagan tenure status in 1968, he took a position with Cornell University in New York, serving as the director for the Laboratory for Planetary Studies and the associate director of the Center for Radio Physics and Space Research.

Diagnosed with the rare bone-marrow disease myelodysplasia, Sagan underwent three bone-marrow transplants over the course of his life. Due to complications from the disease, he contracted pneumonia, which led to his death on Dec. 20, 1996, at age 62.

Making Science Interesting

Although Sagan was most widely known for his scientific communication with the general public, he made many significant scientific contributions as well.

When Sagan was in graduate school, many scientists thought the planet Venus was similar to Earth . As part of his doctorate research, Sagan computed the first greenhouse model for Venus' atmosphere, which revealed a higher temperature than previously suspected. Later, he suggested that dust storms on Mars caused the seasonal changes observed on that planet, and he also wrote a series of papers on the organic chemistry of Jupiter 's atmosphere.

As an advisor to NASA, Sagan helped design and manage the Mariner 2 mission to Venus, the Mariner 9 and Viking trips to Mars, the Voyager system to the outer solar system, and the Galileo mission to Jupiter. He also helped brief astronauts prior to their trips to the moon.

Sagan helped lay the groundwork for two new scientific disciplines: planetary science and exobiology, or the study of potential life on other planets. He co-founded and served as the first president of The Planetary Society , an organization dedicated to inspiring and involving the public in space exploration. And he promoted the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence ( SETI ) Institute, where he served as a trustee.

But Sagan was far more visible as a scientific educator than as a researcher. He was gifted at breaking down scientific concepts into explanations that the public could readily understand, while avoiding talking down to them. He authored hundreds of popular articles and more than two dozen books, and he frequently appeared in Time magazine — landing the cover on Oct. 20, 1980.

"Carl kept feet firmly planted in both the planetary research community and in the greater worlds of science communication and science policy," astronomers Yervant Terzian and Virginia Trimble wrote in the American Astronomical Society's obituary for Sagan .

Sagan's Books and TV Episodes

In 1977, Sagan began work on the television series "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage," serving as writer and presenter. The first show aired on the Public Broadcasting Service in October of 1980. Between new episodes and reruns, the show was the most widely watched series on U.S. public television for nearly a decade. The show won an Emmy and a Peabody award and was broadcast around the world. Sagan's book of the same name (Random House, 2013) stayed on The New York Times best-seller list for 70 weeks and was the best-selling science book ever published in the English language at the time.

In addition to "Cosmos," Sagan also appeared as a guest on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" 26 times, calling it "the biggest classroom in history."

At Sagan's request, NASA commanded its Voyager 1 spacecraft to turn its camera on Earth, creating an image that came to be known as the " Pale Blue Dot ," one of the most famous pictures of Earth from space ever taken. The photo is so iconic that NASA even released an updated version of the “Pale Blue Dot” to celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2020. Sagan used that name as the title of another book. The sequel to "Cosmos," Sagan's "The Pale Blue Dot" (Random House, 1994) toured the solar system and the galaxy , arguing for the necessity of planetary science and the exploration of Earth's closest neighbors. This book, too, was widely well-received by the general public. 

An earlier nonfiction book by Sagan, "The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence," (Random House, 1977) received the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction.

Although the majority of Sagan's work was nonfiction, he used fiction to present scientific principles in his 1985 novel "Contact" (Simon & Schuster, 1985). The story revolved around interactions between the human race and an advanced civilization of extraterrestrials . The novel sold over a million copies in its first two years of publication, and in 1997, it was released as a major motion picture starring Jodi Foster as main character Ellie Arroway (who was inspired by real-life SETI astronomer Jill Tarter ).

In 2015, the Los Angeles Times announced that Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. was working with Sagan's widow, Ann Druyan, on a film about the scientist's life. The production company hasn't released any details about the movie since the initial announcement.

In Sagan's New York Times obituary , then-President of the National Academy of Sciences Bruce Alberts said, "Carl Sagan, more than any contemporary scientist I can think of, knew what it takes to stir passion within the public when it comes to the wonder and importance of science."

Notable Carl Sagan quotes and excerpts from his books:

Carl sagan quotes and book excerpts.

"Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history." — "The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark" (Ballantine Books, 1997)

"The significance of a finding that there are other beings who share this universe with us would be absolutely phenomenal. It would be an epochal event in human history." — Quoted in CNN obituary , December 20, 1996

"At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes — an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense." — "The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark" (Ballantine Books, 1997)

"Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact." — Interview in the magazine Psychology Today (January 1996)

"For myself, I like a universe that includes much that is unknown and, at the same time, much that is knowable. A universe in which everything is known would be static and dull, as boring as the heaven of some weak-minded theologians. A universe that is unknowable is no fit place for a thinking being. The ideal universe for us is one very much like the universe we inhabit. And I would guess that this is not really much of a coincidence." — "Can We Know the Universe?" in M. Gardner (ed.), "The Sacred Beetle and Other Great Essays in Science" (Plume, 1986)

"In a lot of scientists, the ratio of wonder to skepticism declines in time. That may be connected with the fact that in some fields — mathematics, physics, some others — the great discoveries are almost entirely made by youngsters." — Interview in the magazine Psychology Today (January 1996).

"It is sometimes said that scientists are unromantic, that their passion to figure out robs the world of beauty and mystery. But is it not stirring to understand how the world actually works — that white light is made of colors, that color is the way we perceive the wavelengths of light, that transparent air reflects light, that in so doing it discriminates among the waves, and that the sky is blue for the same reason that the sunset is red? It does no harm to the romance of the sunset to know a little bit about it." — "Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space" (Ballantine Books, 1997)

"It is the responsibility of scientists never to suppress knowledge, no matter how awkward that knowledge is, no matter how it may bother those in power; we are not smart enough to decide which pieces of knowledge are permissible and which are not." — Quoted in Lily Splane's "Quantum Consciousness" (Anaphase II Publishing, 2004)

"It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science." — "Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science" (Ballantine Books, 1986)

"Our passion for learning ... is our tool for survival." — "Cosmos" (Random House, 1985)

"The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas." — "The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark" (Ballantine Books, 1997)

"The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." — "Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science" (Ballantine Books, 1986)

"If the dinosaurs had had a space program, they would not be extinct." — Quoted by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin in a NASA press release

"The job is by no means done. We will look for the boundary between the solar system and the interstellar medium, and then we'll voyage on forever in the dark between the stars."

— Quoted in CNN obituary , December 20, 1996 

• NASA's Carl Sagan Page
• The Carl Sagan Portal
• The Planetary Society
• The Carl Sagan Center at SETI
• Snopes: Is this Carl Sagan holding a 'No Billboards in Space' Sign?

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Nola Taylor Tillman is a contributing writer for Space.com. She loves all things space and astronomy-related, and enjoys the opportunity to learn more. She has a Bachelor’s degree in English and Astrophysics from Agnes Scott college and served as an intern at Sky & Telescope magazine. In her free time, she homeschools her four children. Follow her on Twitter at @NolaTRedd

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A pale blue dot: the ultimate earth "selfie...".

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A Pale Blue Dot was written in 1990 by Carl Sagan in response to a NASA photograph that he requested be taken as Voyager I, in February 1990, was leaving our solar system. Voyager I turned and took the "ultimate Earth selfie" showing Earth as a tiny speck of blue in a vast, scattered light rays.  Stop for a moment before beginning the lesson and  go to this link to see the actual photo.  

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• -  Outer space--Exploration
• -  Planets
• -  Space colonies
• -  Astronautics--Human factors
• -  Asteroids
• -  Manuscripts
• Manuscripts
• -  The second of twenty full drafts of Pale blue dot : a vision of the human future in space, published in 1994. Sagan discusses the history of astronomy and considers the future of humanity in space, arguing that it is necessary for humanity's survival to explore and ultimately terraform and create human settlements on planets and asteroids. The draft is made up of interleaved notes. These notes were transcribed from audio recordings dictated by Carl Sagan. The resulting assembled document was then extensively marked up and revised by Sagan. In cases where Sagan wrote notes on the back of printed pages those pages were digitized.
• Dimensions in inches: 11 x 8 1/2

Source Collection

• The Seth MacFarlane Collection of the Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan Archive
• Manuscript Division

Online Format

• online text

IIIF Presentation Manifest

• Manifest (JSON/LD)
• The Seth Macfarlane Collection of the Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan Archive (111)
• Finding Our Place in the Cosmos: From Galileo to Sagan and Beyond (351)
• Manuscript Division (166,427)
• Manuscript/Mixed Material

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• Sagan, Carl
• Astronautics
• Exploration
• Human Factors
• Outer Space
• Space Colonies

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The Library of Congress has digitized various items from numerous Library of Congress collections to create the online collection Finding our Place in the Cosmos: From Galileo to Sagan and Beyond. As a result, the individual collection items may have varying rights and access restrictions. Whenever possible, the Library of Congress provides factual information about copyright owners and related matters in the catalog records, finding aids and other texts that accompany collections. For further information with respect to a specific collection item, see the associated rights & access statement on the individualized web page displaying that specific collection item.

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Cite This Item

Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Sagan, Carl. Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space: Second Draft . 1993. Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/item/cosmos000044/.

APA citation style:

Sagan, C. (1993) Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space: Second Draft . [Manuscript/Mixed Material] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/cosmos000044/.

MLA citation style:

Sagan, Carl. Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space: Second Draft . 1993. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/cosmos000044/>.

Pale Blue Dot

54 pages • 1 hour read

Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Chapter 1

Chapters 2-5

Chapters 6-9

Chapters 10-13

Chapters 14-18

Chapters 19-22

Key Figures

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Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Summary and Study Guide

After a series of disasters threatened public support for the United States space program, astronomer and television personality Carl Sagan addressed the topic of interplanetary travel in his book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space . Published in 1994, Pale Blue Dot is a nonfiction book for general audiences. The hardcover included many color photographs of stars and planets, paintings, and diagrams. This guide is based on the 1997 Ballantine Books paperback, which does not include images.

Pale Blue Dot aims to both educate and inspire its readers. Half the book is a history of planetary science from the first humans to the early 1990s, with an emphasis on discoveries about the solar system since the publication of Sagan’s book Cosmos in 1980. Special emphasis is given to NASA’s Voyager program and its groundbreaking studies of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The rest of Pale Blue Dot is a philosophical inquiry into the value of space exploration. In the wake of the Challenger explosion, repeated failures to find evidence of life on other planets, and changing priorities among the public, Sagan looks to justify continued multi-billion-dollar missions into space.

One justification, Sagan argues throughout, is that the more we venture into the solar system, the more we learn about Earth and ourselves. Learning about the creation and destruction of other worlds helps humans better understand the past and future of Earth. For example, studying the greenhouse effect on Venus led to the discovery of Earth’s depleting ozone layer. A more theatrical example is the book’s namesake image: a photograph of Earth, taken by Voyager 1 beyond Saturn, in which Earth is merely a “pale blue dot.” The cosmic perspective thus provided, Sagan suggests, is as valuable as any hard science. He argues that astronomy is humbling. It builds character and self-awareness, and it encourages us to think long-term rather than short-term.

After an opening discussion of the “pale blue dot” image, the book examines the history of planetary science. In these early chapters, Sagan assumes an Enlightenment ethos; he encourages the use of the scientific method, interrogating what we know and learning new knowledge through experiments. He continues to counter myths about the universe throughout the book. Most of the later chapters focus on single planets or moons, starting with early misconceptions and including the most recent studies. Sagan narrates the journeys and discoveries of the Voyager probes, revisits unmanned missions he’s been involved with as a consultant to NASA and reflects on the meaning of past Moon and Mars missions. These chapters include discussions of the possibility of life on other planets as well as lessons learned about the development of life on Earth.

At the end of Pale Blue Dot , Sagan turns to the future of Earth, especially the rise of global warming, the threat of asteroid and comet collisions, and the possibility of settling other worlds. These later chapters are tied to contemporary debates about future space missions, and Sagan argues both the pros and cons of missions to Mars or near-Earth asteroids. These debates lead to speculative discussions of humanity’s long-term future, what fixes to Earth’s environment and asteroid defense systems might look like, and how space exploration might change over time. Returning to the philosophical questions at the start of the book, Sagan considers what humanity’s next steps into the solar system mean for our place in the universe.

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The Pale Blue Dot – Revisited

The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of Earth taken Feb. 14, 1990, by NASA’s Voyager 1 at a distance of 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) from the Sun. The image inspired the title of scientist Carl Sagan's book, "Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space," in which he wrote: "Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us."

The revised image was processed by JPL engineer and image processing enthusiast Kevin M. Gill with input from two of the image's original planners, Candy Hansen and William Kosmann.

Original – Highest-Resolution (1990)

(tif) (4.32 MB)

Original (1990)

(jpg) (414.21 KB)

Pale Blue Dot Revisited (2020)

(tif) (29.85 MB)

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Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot

One of Sagan’s most popular essays includes this writing about earth and its meaning.

Look 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 “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” 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 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. 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. 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. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known. —  Carl Sagan , Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

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The Art of Our Pale Blue Dot

Image credit: Gavin Aung Than

It is a wonderful thing that words written many years ago can inspire people today. When Carl Sagan wrote his essay “Reflections on a Mote of Dust” (commonly called “Pale Blue Dot”), he must have known how special it was. His words were inspired by a picture taken from a spacecraft 6 billion kilometers away, a probe commanded to turn around and look at our solar system from this great distance. It was so terribly remote at the time that our entire planet appears as a simple pale blue dot, a single pixel of color in a vast patch of darkness.

His essay is, in my opinion, one of the finest examples of writing in the English language. It’s no surprise that people find new ways to honor his words. My friend Gavin Aung Than draws Zen Pencils, where he takes words by scientists and other figures and draws an inspirational web comic based on them. He took my own essay “Welcome to Science” and made a phenomenal series of panels for it, and he recently did the same using Sagan’s words . It’s wonderful, and you may discover your room is very dusty as you read it.

Sagan has inspired artists in other ways too, of course. An animation was recently brought to my attention that uses Sagan’s own voice to breathe new life into this phenomenal tract:

How lovely! Hearing him read that essay chokes me up, still, every time. And this video is not the only one; here’s another favorite of mine , and this one , and this one as well. On the tenth anniversary of Sagan’s death, I was moved to write about his influence on me . It is no exaggeration to say that every word I am able to communicate to you had its way eased by Sagan’s pathbreaking.

If you love space, if you crave to understand the Universe around you, take heed of Sagan’s words. Go out and make it known, because it is one of the best things we humans can do.

Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot, Animated in Motion Graphics

By maria popova.

Now comes a lovely motion graphics adaptation by animation studio ORDER — enjoy, and see if you can hold back the chills.

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again 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 ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ 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. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

Complement this spiritually electrifying ode to our corner of the cosmos with Carl Sagan on science and spirituality .

↬ It’s Okay To Be Smart

— Published December 10, 2012 — https://www.themarginalian.org/2012/12/10/pale-blue-dot-motion-graphics/ —

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Pale Blue Dot

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