File:Earth as 'Pale Blue Dot' (7938153784).jpg

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NASA image acquired February 14, 1990

On September 5, 1977, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard a Titan-Centaur rocket. Thirty-five years later, the planetary probe is now an interstellar traveler, having traveled farther from Earth than any manmade object in history. As of 21:00 Universal Time on September 4, 2012, Voyager 1 was 18.21 billion kilometers (11.31 billion miles) from home, or 121 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Light takes 33 hours and 44 minutes to travel the distance from the Sun to Voyager 1 and back.

This image is often referred to as “the Pale Blue Dot” image and was acquired on February 14, 1990, when the spacecraft was 6.4 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) from Earth and 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane. Earth is a mere point of light, just 0.12 pixels (picture elements) in size when viewed from that distance. The fuzzy light in the images is scattered sunlight because Earth was very close to the Sun (from the perspective of Voyager). The image was part of a series of 60 images collected to make the first-ever mosaic portrait of our solar system.

Having long since passed its primary targets of Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 1 has been cruising for decades toward the edge of the solar system. In fact, researchers have analyzed data from the probe’s particle detectors, cosmic ray detectors, and magnetometer and found evidence that they have passed the termination shock and into the heliosheath—the outer edge of influence for solar wind plasma and energy from our Sun. The probe is now in an area similar to the windless “doldrums” found in tropical seas on Earth. The solar wind has calmed, the magnetic field has piled up due to pressure from outside the solar system, and high-energy particles appear to be leaking out into interstellar space. The Voyager science team expects the spacecraft itself to pass out into that space sometime in the next year or so. “Voyager tells us now that we're in a stagnation region in the outermost layer of the bubble around our solar system,” said Ed Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology, at a December 2011 press conference. “Voyager is showing that what is outside is pushing back. We shouldn't have long to wait to find out what the space between stars is really like.”

To read more about this image go to: 1.usa.gov/NS1SSQ

NASA JPL Planetary Photojournal images PIA01967 and PIA00452. Caption by Mike Carlowicz. Instrument: Voyager

Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

NASA image use policy.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.

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Source Earth as 'Pale Blue Dot'
Author NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from Greenbelt, MD, USA

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This image was originally posted to Flickr by NASA Goddard Photo and Video at https://flickr.com/photos/24662369@N07/7938153784. It was reviewed on 17 September 2016 by FlickreviewR and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0.

17 September 2016

Public domain This file is in the public domain in the United States because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". (See Template:PD-USGov, NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy.)
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5 September 2012

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