Three Decades of Pale Blue Dot

Febraury, 2020

Today it’s been 3 decades of the moment when the iconic photo of the Earth was taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft. In 1980, after finishing its initial mission to study Jupiter, Saturn and their moons it’s mission was extended for the interstellar mission. It is one of the farthest sailing objects made by humankind, another is Voyager 2. These are still sailing the cosmic arena of space and time. After traveling approximately 6 billion kilometers an Astronomer and the originator of ”pale blue dot”, Carl Sagan, requested to turn the spacecraft towards the Earth to take the photo before it’s sensor stops working. On February 14, 1990, Nasa captured the most iconic photo of the space age. Three different photos taken by the different filters were combined and that‘s how the iconic photograph born. During the same imaging sequence, a group of photos was captured- nicknamed ”The Family Portrait of the Solar System” containing five other planets and the sun, in a total of 60 images that NASA photographed by Voyager 1. It contains 640 thousands of pixels in which the Earth is captured in less than a pixel of the whole photo, ”suspended on a Sunbeam”, where we all belong.
Yes, That small ! is our Home. Imagine how big is the whole world, that’s unimaginable. The photo taken by Voyager 1 is nothing comparable to the whole universe. But the greatest significance of this photo is it makes us feel who we are. That tiny pixel contains everything you see around, that happened and the one that will happen. There is no future or the certainty or even the existence of the Earth on that grand scale but it still contains everything for us. No matter how big or small we see the Earth on different scales, our home is our only home which is for sure. If we imagine of that pixel, it’s obvious we feel small. But this small-beautiful our home is full of huge things like wonders and love, where the words of poets propagate through the heart of the people, where the kisses of the father and mother go deep inside the body, where the machines of the inventors multiplies every restless arm, where the chalk of the teacher writes the path of the child, see - how beautiful it is. Here, We became civilized human from the monkeys, we invented money and machines, we planted fruits and vegetables, we made elephants become our servants, we invented medicines to heal our wounds for all our existence but these things not only stopped there, our curiosity also led us for the hunt of the far-reaching sky. We are still doing everything for existence and to know our existence because we know there is no other home. The planet earth is perfect for us in every manner. If you realize about this tiny dot, it provides everything to flourish lives.

The photo is only 30 years old but it reflects the thousands of years of our history. From the day the Earth born to the day you are reading this. That‘s why this dot does not only contain the smiles and love but hatred and tears too. Here, not only the blue rivers have flowed but the rivers of red mixed with the tears too. It has seen many Hitlers and Commanders, swords and bullets, those cruel mass killers, aristocrats and peasants, words of Napoleons, not only the Mandela, Lincoln or Gandhi but those dictators. It has seen the blazing fires of Sumer and Elam to the roar of WWI and WWII, the missiles of the Americas and Russias and the tears of the child in the middle east. It has also seen natural disasters that were not created by the humankind-five major mass extinctions-but the wars were millions of people were killed were not less than those five mass extinctions which were ignited by the agnorance-only difference is they were Natural and the own species were not the cause.
People are/were so willing to kill each other that we are forgetting our own existence. We are losing humanity and kindness and gentleness. We have accomplished so much in machinery that we, ourselves have started feeling like machines. We have become so clever but we are forgetting kindness, we have become so much knowledgeable but being deprived of gentleness. Without these things, humanity can not flourish and our home will only not become less than a battlefield. In the name of nationalism, we don‘t step back to kill another man, in the name of peace we are sending missiles, in the name of humanity we are selling guns and bullets. In hundreds of years, if there is anything changed in our condition, it is not our thought about Nature but the power of weapons. Swords are replaced by guns, horses are replaced by tanks and planes, bows and arrows are replaced by missiles, but the thoughts of those warriors and generals are still the same.
The policymakers are completely out of focus from the frame of Nature. But not only this, we are facing problems in our own localities too. People have educational degrees but they are illiterate. Neglecting science facts, anti-vaxxers, growing of the flat earth society and such and such things can clearly show that where our society is heading. Recently, Australia engulfed in the bush-fire which was predicted a decade and two years ago in the 2008 Garnuat climate change report. Similarly, the outbreak of the Coronavirus was also predicted by the group of the researchers in the paper entitled: “ Bat Coronaviruses in China” published on the 2nd of March 2019. Amazon was nearly destroyed, the Himalayas are melting, droughts are spreading everywhere, and even we don‘t have enough food to feed 7 billion people. Imagine, how we will sustain it?
Hitherto, we don‘t know any other Earth-like planet that can host lives, at least for now. The one and only option is the Earth. Moving to Mars is an ambitious plan but rather than moving their, exploring Mars should be the priority for the present condition because saving and sustaining the already present things are far easier and feasible than to create one. While I‘m saying this I don‘t mean that it is not feasible to shift to Mars or live there, it may be possible because we are humans and we have accomplished so much in creating things but the Earth here-where we live is already a nature gifted place. That‘s why we should keep exploring things because that is our nature but instead of plotting for leaving the Earth we should invest our knowledge and time to make it more beautiful and livable. We should study whether Mars once had supported life, what happened there and reflect those findings to our planet. Not only the history of Mars, here, in the Earth also there are many histories where the civilizations vanished from something to dust only. We should not forget to acknowledge those histories at least for our future generations.
Despite many problems, I’ve summarized here and many that we know exist. I‘m very opti mistic that we can save our home. We have developed so much in science and technologies, we can predict the future consequences, we have well-researched data full of storage devices, We have well-funded laboratories and thousands of years of experiences, we have places full of morals and knowledge, we have enough books to implant the wisdom, we are known to every philosopher who walked in this soil and not only these things, we are entering the era where not only humans but machines are also being intelligent. This 2020 is not the era of the Alexander, this 2020 is the future of today. That‘s why I‘m sure we have enough information to save our home unless we don‘t fool ourselves and unless we dare to put our words to practice. The first thing is we should have beliefs but not beliefs before facts. Science is real and it can save our world. But only science is not enough, our conscience to chose right for our home is what gonna make us sustained. Words of poets have the power that nothing can emit, our tradition and culture are what makes us alive, and our environment is what our home forms of. We should preserve flora and fauna and walk together, in fact, they are our home. If they live here, we will live here otherwise we will be nothing more than the stardust that will vanish in the oceans of the stars. We should never forget that this tiny dot, is not only a dot but a dream of billions of lives and a hope for humankind to keep sailing on the cosmic voyage. If we have the power to turn another planet to Earth within a decade then we do have the power to make our home beautiful again.


At last, ”Look at that dot, that‘s here, that‘s home.”