Pale blue dot
I would like to present to you the “Pale blue dot” photography with additional interpretation from its originator - astrophysicist Carl Sagan.
The picture posted below was taken around 30 years ago by the Voyager 1 space probe, on the verge of our Solar system.
source https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pale_Blue_Dot.png
It might be not visible at first glance, but if you have another look you might spot almost a pixel-sized, blue dot, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, lost in the nothingness. It’s our home, planet Earth.
Without any further ado I encourage you to watch Sagan’s interpretation of the photography.
Questions:
1) Have you ever looked at our civilization from that far perspective? Maybe you have already seen the picture before or just tend to have your head somewhere in the clouds..or cosmos?
2) How does it make you feel? Is it more depressive, inspiring, relieving or maybe you are completely indifferent to taking that perspective on Earth?
3) What’s your favorite sci-fi/cosmos-themed work (book, movie, game, song, etc.)?
Comments
2. I find it fascinating, because with a universe so big and such a huge amount of celestial bodies, it is almost impossible that we are the only intelligent species out there. Astronomy is the most attractive among all sciences. We all watch the achievements of SpaceX and NASA with great interest.
3. I love “Star Wars”, but that’s not very original answer, so other than that I think that “Interstellar” is the best cosmos-themed movie I have ever watched. Recently I watched another movie, “Ad Astra”, which has a lot of negative comments, but I completely disagree with them. In my opinion it is great and definitely worth watching. It shows a different perspective of discovering the space at any cost and psychological consequences of being so far from home. Among games, I think that the “Mass Effect” trilogy is one of the best.
Yes, I imagine a lot, and seeing Earth as some tiny planet in compare to others even in our Solar System really makes us a bit hmm meaningless to the whole great unkown.
2) How does it make you feel? Is it more depressive, inspiring, relieving or maybe you are completely indifferent to taking that perspective on Earth?
It makes me feel a bit really meaningless but in at the same time as a little part of a great machine. Like a screw is part of a bigger vehicle, alone it does not have a meaning but with other it is a part of something magnificant.
3) What’s your favorite sci-fi/cosmos-themed work (book, movie, game, song, etc.)?
I believe from my childhood perspective it would Star Wars and Stargate. Both franchise are well remembered by me and I like to come back to them as they give me more material to think about.
Thanks for Ad Astra recommendation, it's on my movies to watch list for a long time, but after your comment I moved a bit forward to the top of the list :D
I was aware of the picture, I think that even seeing earth from low orbit could make us reflective about life on this planet, that the whole world that we know of with all of our problems and joys, is only a small dot barely visible from not that far away.
2)
Inspiring, it helps me remember that we are living in a special place in our close cosmic neighbourhood.
3)
I was raised on the Stargate series while I was a child, but also enjoyed later on BSG, Firefly and Doctor Who. When it comes to books I really enjoyed the Foundation series by Asimov.
2. For me it's really inspiring but at the same time a little bit frightening. Our every move is meaningless in the endless universe around our small planet. But I fully support space missions and developing our knowledge about space and astronomy and I find it really exciting.
3. I really liked The Martian book, it was really earthbound (:-)) in terms of story and events that were presented. The level of details was amazing and even if for now it is still a fiction, the information presented there were definitely more sci than fi. As for the movie I also liked the mentioned above Ad Astra for it's psyhological accent and Interstellar for quality of content.
1) Have you ever looked at our civilization from that far perspective? Maybe you have already seen the picture before or just tend to have your head somewhere in the clouds..or cosmos?
I didn't think about it. But I admire the astrophysicists who study and reflect on these problems. I think we'll never go further than Mars. And as for the joint hypotheses in the text, you can't say they're true or not. I think it's hard to say how big the universe is today because all we see is an old picture of the universe. The speed of light and the size of the universe make watching the night sky a pleasant time travel, and we watch something that looks different, but the light has not yet reached us.
2) How does it make you feel? Is it more depressive, inspiring, relieving or maybe you are completely indifferent to taking that perspective on Earth?
It doesn't matter to me. It's a little sad that the universe is probably so big that even if there's another life somewhere in space, we won't be able to meet.
3) What’s your favorite sci-fi/cosmos-themed work (book, movie, game, song, etc.)?
My favorite prince is Pratchett's long earth cycle. The book, or rather the whole series, stimulates the imagination. Changing the view of reality. The book contains many reflections on human nature, physics, creation and evolution of communities. You have to read as a whole.
2. Indifferent I guess. It's big, so what about it? Do you think that ants or other even smaller organisms bother with how big Earth. Or even with our existence? We have our life, we should focus on what we can do there, and strive to discover more about unknown, but it's not something that affects us now. Like I already mentioned it will be nice to observe how much people can achieve in such direction, but it doesn't change much in my perspective, aside from satisfying curiosity.
3. I've never been into such genres. I'm more of a dark fantasy type person :p. Which makes Warhammer 40k, both games and books, probably my best shot in sci-fi. But I'm trying to gather energy to buy telescope for almost a year now. Maybe it'll change after I finally get one.
2. I’m completely indifferent on this subject on daily basis, but when i think how small we are in comparison to whole outer spice i realize a lot of things that contribute nothing on earth doesn’t matter at all.
3. I wanted to give here sophisticated answer but when i started thinking about it i realized that star wars and star trek are my favorite cosmos themed movies.
No, I have never seen this picture before, but I like watching videos or reading articles about space, recently I also watched the live launch of astronauts on the ISS by the private firm SpaceX. So I realize how small the Earth is even if comparing with other planets in Solar System and it is incredible.
2) How does it make you feel? Is it more depressive, inspiring, relieving or maybe you are completely indifferent to taking that perspective on Earth?
It makes me feel inspired and somehow relieved. Cause when you watch such videos it seems that all "serious" people`s problems about politics and economics are so insignificant and minor. And you realize that dividing people by race and nations is also so primitively, cause we are just humans who live on one planet, and the majority of us don`t have one nationality and have roots from all over the world.
P.S. Here is some Momodo videos about how people came to know their origin ("The DNA Journey") if you would be interested :) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyon3Rc2gtzci-FrBfPLcHRS_hfHY9peQ
3) What’s your favorite sci-fi/cosmos-themed work (book, movie, game, song, etc.)?
My favorite science fiction film is Interstellar. This film made a tremendous impression on me. For all three hours I was not distracted from watching it and then wondered for several days how the world worked.
1) Have you ever looked at our civilization from that far perspective? Maybe you have already seen the picture before or just tend to have your head somewhere in the clouds..or cosmos?
Yes, I have. As an astronomy enthusiast, of course I have.
2) How does it make you feel? Is it more depressive, inspiring, relieving or maybe you are completely indifferent to taking that perspective on Earth?
To know that our civilization is meaningless? It actually raises no feelings at all.
3) What’s your favorite sci-fi/cosmos-themed work (book, movie, game, song, etc.)?
The books of Strugatsky Brothers. No need to introduce them -- simply the best sci - fi authors on this blue dot. Just read the books (they are translated to Polish as well as English, and I believe, tens of other languages, even Latin).
2. To be honest, it's difficult to answer this question, but I think it's both interesting and sad. Why sad? Because a lot of people stubbornly look for a foreign life form.
3. I can only recommend the Interstellar movie, it really gives a lot to think about and is interesting.
Yes, I've seen this picture shown in article and a few others but I don't think that it really matters how small we are in whole Universe. We did great things as a society of Earth livers so that is something big despite the fact that for other civilizations (if they actually exists) it could be nearly to nothing.
3) What’s your favorite sci-fi/cosmos-themed work (book, movie, game, song, etc.)?
In terms of how Universe looks my definit answear would be Interstellar but in terms of our future as human beings it would more something like Nervo or Cyberpunk, it really shows one of possible scenrios of how we gonna live in far future
I have seen such pictures before, maybe this one. Sometimes it is good to remember that we are still nothing in the universe, even in a galaxy, sometimes it is useless and doesn't help in a situation at all.
2) How does it make you feel? Is it more depressive, inspiring, relieving or maybe you are completely indifferent to taking that perspective on Earth?
From time to time it seems like a challenge. You know, change the situation, somehow change the borders of humanity. But it's so futuristic challenge, that first, it is necessary to complete some others, like make life longer and so on.
3) What’s your favorite sci-fi/cosmos-themed work (book, movie, game, song, etc.)?
Doctor Who, Star Wars, Rick and Morty, and others. Always hard to decide cause they all are so different and so good. The last thing was the Jedi: Fallen Order, the game. Nice one to play.
2) How does it make you feel? Is it more depressive, inspiring, relieving or maybe you are completely indifferent to taking that perspective on Earth?
3) What’s your favorite sci-fi/cosmos-themed work (book, movie, game, song, etc.)?
1. Well, from such a long perspective, I haven't had the pleasure of looking at our Earth yet. It is amazing that space is so huge and we, as humanity, still have no idea what it is.
2. more interesting and stimulating the imagination. Looking at Earth from such a distance one can realize how small we are in relation to the world that surrounds us, all our worries, problems and everyday matters are not of the slightest importance when we look at it from the cosmic perspective. Even if all the people on Earth cease to exist, nothing will really change - the planets will continue to circulate around the sun and tomorrow "a new day would arise again" no matter how some might not like it, we have no influence on anything - looking from this perspective.
3. It's hard to say because I'm generally a fan of sci-fi and cosmic themes. As a child I grew up watching Star Wars but after the last few years it's hard for me to keep calling myself a fan, although I have to admit that The Mandalorian was great and this is really the last hope for the Star Wars world. I surely still liked The Expanse and Origin very much.
I am familiar with Carl Sagan conception of taking last picture of planet earth by Voyager.
2) How does it make you feel? Is it more depressive, inspiring, relieving or maybe you are completely indifferent to taking that perspective on Earth?
It does not change my mind, I knew about the scale of our planet compared to universe.
3) What’s your favorite sci-fi/cosmos-themed work (book, movie, game, song, etc.)?
Star Wars, but I don't feel it's as cosmos-themed as it this topic requires. Mass Effect series maybe, I hope that one day we can make galaxy-wide society.
2. I think it makes me depressive and fascinated at the same time. It's depressing to think how small we are in the universe, but it is also fascinating when you think about how little we know about the universe, and how much more we can learn about it.
3. I love sci-fi themed things in general, so i have a few favourites. My favourite sci-fi book would be "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card, and my favourite sci-fi movie would be "The Fifth Element".
I think it's very healthy to think about our irrelevance in the big picture, but only in controlled, small doses. It may lead to unwanted side effects in case of overdose.
I haven't read the book but I did watch the movie. Is book worth reading if someone is already familiar with the movies? Are there any plot differences?
2.When I look at the picture I don't really think about anything special. It is interesting to see the Earth from that perspective but it doesn't make me sad or anything. I just feel very impressed by the size of space.
3.I really like the the song "Cosmic Girl" by Jamiroquai :)
The size of universe (and its physics limitations) is so overwhelming that, in my honest opinion, focusing on it nowadays, with current technology, is just waste of resources.
Resources that we could use more efficiently taking care of our own planet. Nevertheless I'm excited about any news in space exploration fields. Also cheering for spaceX successes!
I think you are right that currently we are on satisfying curiosity level that doesn't lead us into any specific place. But wasn't curiosity the common thing among all groundbreaking discoveries? I think it's important to find golden mean between curiosity and effectiveness, but as is having few units that dedicate their whole life just to feed their curiosity, even if others call them crazy :)
The speed of light and time relatively is very mind-mangling topic but personally I love how surreal it is for us.
The Fifth Element, hmm, that rings me the bell, but not quite sure where :) Wasn't it a movie that was aired regularly on polish TVN decade ago?
It might be also calming, as realising how small we are it is unlikely that any aliens related conspiracy theories are real. I think we are save for any aliens invasion for very long time!
Or...
maybe we are already just pets for them, like ants don't realise they live in formarium
You really surprised me with your doubts if star wars is cosmos-themed title. Isn't it the most iconic and common work? You can also see the star wars pattern here in the comments. I think you're totally accurate calling it a cosmos-themed work!
It's really fascinating, and even kind of scary to think that we are so little in the perspective of the universe. I try not to think about it because it's disturbing and I don't like to think that we are all insignificant in the comparison to the universe.
2) How does it make you feel? Is it more depressive, inspiring, relieving or maybe you are completely indifferent to taking that perspective on Earth?
For me it's depressing. I like to think that I can change something and that every person's life is important but looking from that perspective all we do is insignificant and it's just sad.
3) What’s your favorite sci-fi/cosmos-themed work (book, movie, game, song, etc.)?
I really like the Takeshi Kovacs book series by Richard Morgan. There is even a Tv series on Netflix based on this book series, which is also pretty good.