This updated version of the iconic “Pale Blue Dot”
image taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft uses modern image-processing software
and techniques to revisit the well-known Voyager view while attempting to
respect the original data and intent of those who planned the images.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
For the 30th anniversary of one of the most iconic views from the Voyager mission, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, California, is publishing a new version of the image known as the
“Pale Blue Dot.”
The updated image uses modern
image-processing software and techniques while respecting the intent of those
who planned the image. Like the original, the new color view shows Planet Earth
as a single, bright blue pixel in the vastness of space. Rays of sunlight
scattered within the camera optics stretch across the scene, one of which
happens to have intersected dramatically with Earth.
The view was obtained on Feb. 14,
1990, just minutes before Voyager 1’s cameras were intentionally powered off to
conserve power and because the probe — along with its sibling, Voyager 2 —
would not make close flybys of any other objects during their lifetimes.
Shutting down instruments and other systems on the two Voyager spacecraft has
been a gradual and ongoing process that has helped enable their longevity.
This simulated view, made using NASA’s Eyes on the
Solar System app, approximates Voyager 1’s perspective when it took its final
series of images known as the “Family Portrait of the Solar System,” including
the “Pale Blue Dot” image.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
This celebrated Voyager 1 view was part of a series of 60 images designed
to produce what the mission called the “Family Portrait of the Solar System.”
This sequence of camera-pointing commands returned images of six of the solar
system’s planets, as well as the Sun. The Pale Blue Dot view was created using
the color images Voyager took of Earth.
The popular name of this view is
traced to the title of the 1994 book by Voyager imaging scientist Carl Sagan,
who originated the idea of using Voyager’s cameras to image the distant Earth
and played a critical role in enabling the family portrait images to be taken.
Additional information about the
Pale Blue Dot image is available at:
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/536/voyager-1s-pale-blue-dot/
The original Pale Blue Dot and
Family Portrait images are available at:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA00452
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA00451
The Voyager spacecraft were built
by JPL, which continues to operate both. JPL is a division of Caltech in
Pasadena. The Voyager missions are a part of the NASA Heliophysics System
Observatory, sponsored by the Heliophysics Division of the Science Mission
Directorate in Washington. For more information about the Voyager spacecraft,
visit:
Written
by Preston Dyches
By: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Source: ’Pale Blue Dot’ Revisited - NASA
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