A day later, three Earth-as-a-dot images were taken – then NASA shut down Voyager 1’s camera permanently, to conserve energy for the rest of its decadeslong mission.ĭownloading the images took several weeks: The final download occurred May 1, 1990, via NASA’s Deep Space Network.Īs of Feb. 13, 1990, NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers sent commands to Voyager 1 to face Earth in order to get the photo. Sagan knew the picture would render Earth as just a dot of light, but as stated on the NASA website, the Voyager team “wanted humanity to see Earth’s vulnerability and that our home world is just a tiny, fragile speck in the cosmic ocean.” Sagan, part of Voyager’s imaging team, is credited with the idea of having Voyager 1 take images of Earth and its sibling planets.
A decade later, it was time for a solar system family portrait. The spacecraft flew past Jupiter on March 5, 1979, and by Saturn on Nov. 5, 1977, to explore the solar system and beyond. Now 30 years later, Voyager 1 is nearly 14 billion miles away. 14, 1990 by NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft, from a distance of 3.7 billion miles. The iconic “pale blue dot” photograph of planet Earth, which was taken Feb.
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