Unmanned spacecraft, Voyager I and its sister Voyager II, are currently traveling outside the solar system to collect data. Even though they haven’t returned to Earth yet, they had time to give them “travel souvenirs”, moments before saving energy and continuing their journey outside the solar system.
Quoted from the website of the United States space agency (NASA), Voyager I was launched on September 5, 1977, or a few days after Voyager II took off.
Around Jupiter, Voyager I caught up with Voyager II and overtook it in orbit on December 15, 1977. Thus, Voyager I is considered first or foremost in space travel.
After crossing the boundaries of the trajectories of Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, Voyager I photographed a ‘solar system family’ that had never before been seen by humans.
The photo was taken when the spacecraft was about 3.7 billion miles, aka 6 billion kilometers from the sun, on February 14, 1990 to be precise. The task was done well, even though Mercury was not visible because it was too close to the sun.
Likewise Mars because it is covered in sunlight, and Pluto is too far and dark to be captured by the camera lens. As a result, the 60 frames of images he produced and sent managed to show humans the position of the earth among other planets in the sun’s gravitational field.
Some of the photos show the earth as small as a pale blue dot which was later named the “Pale Blue Dot” photo which holds a message about how small and fragile the earth is among other objects in the universe.
Uniquely, the sunlight shone like there were several flashlights, one of which was hitting the ground which added to the dramatic atmosphere of the photo.
reported BBC, in 2020 the “Pale Blue Dot” photo was updated with careful and disciplined computer image processing, so as not to give distorted changes.
The previously circulated “Pale Blue Dot” photo has actually gone through three color filters, namely purple, blue and green, then put together to form a color image.
Then the latest processing still does not throw away the point of the earth and the rays of the sun. However, the overall photo has been cleaner so that people can focus on the appearance of the earth.
Carl Sagan and Carolyn Porco were the two imaging scientists involved in the mission and requested that photographs of the solar system’s family be taken, before the cameras and other non-vital elements were turned off to conserve Voyager I’s power.
Sagan in his book entitled Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space published in 1994, explains how small the earth is in this cosmic ocean.
“Look at that dot again. It’s here. It’s home. It’s us. A speck of dust stuck in the sun,” Sagan said.
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