I was reading about Voyager 1 today - a wonderful NASA experiment- and during my research, I learned that Carl Sagan asked the team in charge if they could turn Voyager's camera back to face earth for a photograph, the result of which is the photo above. You can just make out Earth as a tiny pale blue dot about half way down the right hand brown line. Humbling, isn't it?
Incidentally, Voyager 1 is carrying a brilliant phonograph record with all sorts of music, photos and greetings, together with instructions on how to use it and binary versions of our science. It reminded me of Contact, the Jodie Foster movie dedicated to Carl. Knowing what I now know, I can see why they dedicated it to him. It's called the Golden Record. The picture above is the instructions for how to use it.
