A little more than a minute tonight, but it is worth it.

 

The Voyager 1 Spacecraft was launched in 1977 to take pictures of Jupiter, Saturn and Titan.  As it was leaving our inner Solar System in 1990, (at the request of Carl Sagan) NASA had it turn around and take a photo of earth from this great distance.  The photo you have in your hand is a small print of this photo.

 

And yes, that tiny light blue smudge is Earth.

 

Sagan shared the image during a public lecture at Cornell University in 1994, and gave a speech sharing his reflections on the image.

 

For the last Earth Day-ish meeting, let’s listen to the short speech.