Pale Blue Dot (book)

In the book, Sagan mixes philosophy about the human place in the universe with a description of the current knowledge about the Solar System.

[1] In 2023, the audiobook of Pale Blue Dot, read by Sagan, was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.

Sagan proposes two reasons for the persistence of the idea of a geocentric, or Earth-centered universe: human pride in our existence, and the threat of torturing those who dissented from it, particularly during the time of the Roman Inquisition.

After saying that we have gained humility from understanding that we are not literally the center of the universe, Sagan embarks on an exploration of the entire Solar System.

He describes the difficulty of working with the low light levels at distant planets, and the mechanical and computer problems which beset the twin spacecraft as they aged, and which could not always be diagnosed and fixed remotely.

The original 1990 Pale Blue Dot photograph in which Earth is seen from the Voyager 1 space probe (nearly half-way up the righthand band of light).
Pale Blue Dot as republished by NASA in 2020 for the images' 30th anniversary. Using modern image-processing software, the brightness and colors were balanced to enhance the area containing the Earth. [ 4 ]