On a Pale Blue Dot
Adam Kall, Director of Science
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us.” - Carl Sagan
5 minute read
Source: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/solar-system-portrait-earth-as-pale-blue-dot/
This image, known as Pale Blue Dot, was taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft on February 14th, 1990, at Carl Sagan’s suggestion. On the right side of the image suspended in a beam of sunlight is a single white pixel that is the Earth, seen from a distance farther than the orbit of Pluto at 4 billion miles. I always have strong emotions when I look at this image, read Carl Sagan’s accompanying statement, and take a moment to appreciate just what it represents. These emotions could be fear and anxiety, which would be perfectly understandable considering how fragile our home looks from such a distance, but for me they have become feelings of purpose and direction. This image does not make me think “Look how small and vulnerable we all seem,” but instead “Look how close we are to the start of our journey, and how much more there is to achieve.”
Now that I am starting, as a general term, a space company, I find myself on an uncharted trajectory. As a kid I looked up to many individuals who also started space companies or agencies. Now that I’m trying to do this myself I wonder if there are kids who will one day look up to me, or adults who wonder if they could also set out and achieve their life goals. I want to help these dreamers by sharing some of the ways I think, which has enabled me to do the things I do, and that all started with that Pale Blue Dot.
I am not the smartest person in the world. In college my math professor told me a story - because of all the knowledge that exists, the last Smartest Person in the World was a Spanish explorer at the end of the 1700s, whose name I could not in my research specifically identify as many people claim the title in that same era. The idea that one needs to be the Smartest Person in the World to achieve something incredible is wrong, because that title is unnecessary and not even real. We now live in an age with so many topics and areas of expertise that people need to dedicate much of their life to figuring out the exact details of some small piece of a massively larger puzzle. I am indebted to these people, since I can read their writing, learn from their theorems, and in the luckiest of cases, speak to them and glean a fraction of what they know. Because of this amazing time of discovery and my access to those discoveries, I’ve made a simple conclusion: there is no problem or obstacle that humanity will not eventually overcome.
Such a bold statement may in fact be naive and I’m sure some people reading right now are excited to tell me their clever problem that will never be solved, but that’s missing the point of the statement. The point of the statement was that if everything is eventually possible, what is it you will try to achieve? And in the context of a Pale Blue Dot, is that achievement worth achieving?
“On [that Pale Blue Dot], 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 “super star,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” - Carl Sagan
That is a long list of aspirational careers and life goals that, in the context of occurring on the surface of a piece of dust, no longer seem like the pinnacle of success. In the context of where we all are and our place in the universe, I see two major goals that are actually worth pursuing. The first is the one I choose, to expand off of this Pale Blue Dot and enable humanity to start its discovery and expansion of a wider universe.
The second goal is to protect this Pale Blue Dot. Though it may be small in the universe, it is still a very special place that should not be squandered. Doing something that makes this mote of dust just a little more resilient, and which raises the sum of our happiness just a little more towards the positive, is a worthy goal.
If all we have, for now, is this Pale Blue Dot, don’t squander your opportunity by thinking that you are bigger than you are, nor by underestimating how capable you can be. Set your sights on the things that matter, and strive to achieve those goals. Make sure to spend your time on that which is worthy of your time.
I’ll leave you with some final thoughts, in the form of more eternal words from Carl Sagan:
“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
Recommended column to read next: First Footings in the Final Frontier