“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 its 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.”
– An excerpt from Carl Sagan’s “A Pale Blue Dot”
What could be more precise and truthful depiction of life on earth than this timeless, eloquent musing of the irreplaceable Carl Sagan? It was February 14, 1990, when the Voyager 1 spacecraft took the iconic photograph of the Pale Blue Dot. The image was composed of 640,000 individual pixels which are only 12% of a single pixel, representing Earth. The iconic image was captured as a tiny speck in a beam of scattered sunlight, which inspired Carl Sagan’s famous and beautiful meditation on the impermanence and folly of human conceits. This photograph was in reality a part of a mosaic of 60 images that were intended as what the Voyager team called the first “Family Portrait” of our solar system.
Although the Pale Blue Dot image comes with a whole story behind it, we’re going to skip it for now. Instead, we’ll talk about the beautiful poetic musing about our planet, our home — the Earth, and the genius of Carl Sagan.
The more we read it, the more we emerge in the wonderful symmetry of the words of the passage written by Carl. The planet that we live in and create millions of stories filled with happiness and thousands of other emotions, is just a tiny pale blue dot in the entire cosmos. There is no sign of life anywhere else. We are all alone. And yet, people play enemies to each other instead of cherishing these precious lives and the planet of ours. We don’t have anywhere else to go if someday the planet encounters a huge epidemic or an apocalypse.
Carl Sagan was a prominent planetary astronomer, a forerunner in the quest for extraterrestrial biology, a fascinating teacher, and the most effective public advocate and a guardian of the values of science the world has ever known.
This celebrated showman of astronomical science contributed much of his career to improving and simplifying science for public understanding while safeguarding its rational nature.
Starting off his career as an assistant professor at Harvard, Sagan later moved to Cornell University where he worked most of his life. He authored more than 600 papers and essays on scientific topics, and co-authored and edited over 20 books. Some of the celebrated works of Sagan include Contact (1985), a science-fiction novel, and Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994).
In 1973, he co-authored “The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective” with Jerome Agel, which proved his prominence as a great science writer. In 1980, he reached the epitome of public fame for his award-winning television series “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage”. Co-written with his talented wife, Ann Druyan, “Cosmos” became the most-watched television series in the history of American public television. He also published a book bearing the same title which eventually became a best seller.
Sagan played a leading role in the American space program since its initiation. In the 1950s, he held the position of consultant and adviser to NASA. He was the adviser who instructed the Apollo astronauts before their path-breaking flight to the Moon. He was also a researcher on the Mariner, Voyager, Viking, and Galileo missions to the planets. He worked extensively to solve galactic mysteries including the ‘high temperature of Venus’, the ‘seasonal changes on Mars’, and the ‘reddish haze of Titan’.
Sagan became a prestigious name in the world of science. He often raised his voice against the unethical use of scientific innovations. His campaign for nuclear disarmament and his resistance to the Strategic Defense Initiative of US President Ronald Reagan was exemplary steps toward his love for science and the entire humanity.
Sagan was known for his assiduous advocacy of scientific rationality. In one of his last books, “The Demon-Haunted World” (1996) he deliberately argued against general people’s propensities toward pseudoscience and occultism.
Sagan received countless awards and honors for his lifelong contribution to science. The most prestigious of the awards include the National Academy of Sciences Public Welfare Medal, NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for his book The Dragons of Eden, two Emmy Awards for his epoch-making TV series “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage”, the Peabody Award, and the Hugo Award.
He died at the age of 62 of pneumonia on December 20, 1996.
Sagan explained the enchanting glory of the space in such a brilliant way that no one else ever could. It’s been almost two decades since he left us, yet his voice, his fondness for the word ‘billions’, and his child-like enthusiasm for exploring and demystifying the secrets of the universe will remain with us forever.