Bleka blå pricken

Sedd från cirka 6 miljarder kilometer bort ärjordenbara en liten prick, undanskymd av skingrat solsken.

Bleka blå pricken(engelska:Pale Blue Dot) är ettfotografiavplanetenjorden,taget avrymdsondenVoyager 1från ett distansrekord, visandejordeni jämförelse medrymdensomfång. Det är också namnet på enbokutgiven 1994 avastronomenCarl Sagan,som inspirerades av fotot.

Fotografiet

"Familjeporträttet" avsolsystemetfotograferat avVoyager 1.

Carl SaganochCarolyn Porcofick idén att ta ett familjeporträtt avsolsystemet.Uppdragsledningen var först tveksam, och tidigare hade de varit oroliga att kameran skulle ta skada av det relativt kraftiga ljuset, men fick ordern om bilden genom dåvarande NasaadministratörenRichard Truly. Den 14 februari 1990 beordrade såledesNasaVoyager 1,som just fullbordat sitt uppdrag, att vända sig om för att fotografera planeterna isolsystemet.Ett fotografi som Voyager 1 återförde visade jorden som en "blek blå prick" ivärldsrymden.Sagan återger distansen som 3,7 miljarderengelska mili sin bok, medan Nasas webbplats beskriver det som "mer än 4 miljarder engelska mil" (6,4 miljarder kilometer). Voyager tog liknande bilder avVenus,Jupiter,UranusochNeptunus,och skapade ettporträttav solsystemet.Merkuriusnärhet tillsolenförhindrade den från att bli fotograferad ochMarsvar inte synlig på grund av det starka solskenet motkameransoptik.

I en avslutande föreläsning den 11 maj 1996 relaterade Sagan till sina tankar om en djupare mening med fotografiet:

”

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.

„

Al GoresdokumentärAn Inconvenient Truth(2006) presenterade fotografiet av den "bleka blå pricken" i slutet av filmen. Gore använde den i sitt bildspel för att understryka behovet av att stoppa denglobala uppvärmningenoch citerade Carl Sagan med uttalandet: "That's all we've got" (svenska:"Det är allt/det enda vi har").

Se även

• Dagen då Jorden log
• Den blå pärlan