Carl Sagan - You Are Here (Pale Blue Dot) [Sagan Time]

This excerpt from A Pale Blue Dot was inspired by an image taken, at Carl Sagan's suggestion, by Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990. As the spacecraft left our planetary neighborhood for the fringes of the solar system, engineers 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.

Credits:

Music: Ludovico Einaudi with a track titled, very fittingly, "The Earth Prelude"
Initial clip collection: HottiesInc
Ending scene: The intro from "Contact", the motion picture based on Carl Sagan's novel by the same name

I take no credit for anything in this video.

For audio download/more, visit www.sagantime.com

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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 (1934-1996)

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Carl Sagan
• Sagan
• Pale Blue Dot
• Cosmos
• cosmology
• astronomy
• life
• perspective
• space
• solar system
• Milky Way galaxy
• Milky Way
• galaxy
• stars
• Sagan Time

[Lakozte]

@brianab78

You are very brave to try to imply your christian beliefs on a Carl Sagan video. First, and most firmly, there is not a reason why God left us a book. Why? Simply put, he never left that book. The Bible(which I assume you're refering to) has been written by people thousands and hundreds of years ago claiming that they have received word from him, but has yet not provided any kind of evidence. Until that evidence is brought forth, I choose to not believe in any God.

[d0rv]

How is ANYONE arguing on this video? Isn't what this video addresses? Doesn't the video tell us that we should be more humble and accept one another, and to try and preserve this pale blue dot, our only home?

[brianab78]

@MrImmoli Wow really??? Has God revealed to you what year or around what year it would happen and or will one of them die? But lets get to the bottom line... Will it even be such an important fight that God had no choice but to let you know about it so that we can be ready for an apocalypse type situation? Wow, what a strange prophecy! That's pretty cool dawg. Tho I only worship God not men. Tough luck eh.

[blandlife4ever]

No video has made me feel so insignificant yet this provides me with the utmost comfort that no religion has ever been able to do. Absolutely brilliant.

[zombierehab]

@d0rv fuck the blue dot lets KILL PEOPLE BURN SHIT AND FUCK SCHOOL

[keko4321]

what sucked in the video , the twilight part .

for the holy cow's sake you couldn't find a better lovers ?

when i look at the twilight movie's fans i just wanna forget about the Pale Blue dot

[Vojife]

I never thought I would listen to spoken words multiple times like to music. =)

[MrImmoli]

@brianab78

Yo dawg, sometime within 1000 years one dude will get into a fight with another dude.

I'm totally a psychic now, worship me.

[XxSteevo93xX]

@Lakozte I really don't think Sagan was commentating on religion or God at all in this excerpt from his book... Whoever created the video just put pictures of prayer in that one part.

[saguhh00]

This speech is the best one I've ever heard. If only one politician would say anything even remotely like that.

[saguhh00]

@Devialx10 There's a difference between proving someone wrong and thinking youre right.

All religions say they know for sure things they can't prove.

The same people who say we should be humble before God are the ones who say "there's no aliens - the entire Universe was created for us only". That's SOOO humble.

[Devialx10]

Christians, Atheists, Muslims and all. Carl Sagan would be disgusted with us by how we talk to each other here. None of us can prove the other wrong, nor prove yourself right. Back off of each other, and realize we're all human.