VeeshanVault

Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot, 1994 wrote: 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.

Spang wrote:When I'm dead, a camera will be attached to me before I go in the coffin. I'm putting that in my will.

31 years later it will take a picture.

Spang wrote:I'm doing it for Noel.

He likes this shit.

Spang wrote:It's only gay if the balls touch.

Siji wrote:The fact that you prefer sweaty hairy man parts to noel's shaved legs says something..

Drolgin Steingrinder wrote:excellent threadshitting job, gents. I applaud you.

Drolgin Steingrinder wrote:excellent threadshitting job, gents. I applaud you.

Winnow wrote:

Drolgin Steingrinder wrote:excellent threadshitting job, gents. I applaud you.

I appreciated your effort.

As bad as I am about hijacking sometimes, I try not to fuck up good science thread just to make a retarded comment like the ones on this thread.

Nick wrote:Pictures like this are about as cool as it gets.

I really like some of the pictures that were taken as Pheonix landed on Mars recently, there is one in particular that one of the orbiting satellites took of the Pheonix just as it was parachuting into this giant crater. It was the coolest picture I've seen in a good long while.

(Too busy to find it now, maybe someone else knows the one I mean?)

Chidoro wrote:How the hell are we even able to send or receive a signal from that far away? That was the first thing I thought of. My fucking XM radio goes out under a bridge, you'd think something would be blocking the way over the course of 4 billion miles.

Canelek wrote:I was reading a bit about Sagan on the wikipedia. I had no idea how much this dude contributed to science! I only remembered him from PBS stuff back when I was a kid. I think I will try to find the old programs and give them a looksee. Very awesome photo!

I can't remember where I read it, but I recall reading something about how we stopped using signals that powerful a long time ago. Even though we can send signals that would go out into space, most of what we use is much shorter range now and I don't remember if that was because we don't need it that strong or because the waves carrying the signal are different. Or maybe I just watched Contact and am pulling shit out of my ass.