Astronomer Carl Sagan convinced NASA to turn the Voyager 1 spacecraft back toward Earth to capture what became the iconic "Pale Blue Dot" photograph. On February 14, 1990, Voyager 1 took the image from a distance of nearly 4 billion miles (about 6 billion km), showing Earth as a tiny speck suspended in a sunbeam. The photograph became one of the most famous images ever taken from space and later inspired Sagan's book Pale Blue Dot.
Previous Fact Next Fact