Celebrate Earth Day 2023: The Most Iconic Earth Selfie from Space

 In honor of Earth Day 2023, we want to showcase the unparalleled beauty, fragility, and uniqueness of our planet. It is our collective responsibility to safeguard it, as finding another like it will be no easy task. Let's commemorate Earth Day together with the most iconic Earth "selfie" taken from space.

We couldn't resist celebrating Earth Day 2023 by sharing the legendary Pale Blue Dot. Captured by Voyager 1, it was the first-ever snapshot of our solar system. From such a great distance, our Earth appears as a mere speck amidst the darkness, clearly visible at the center of a light beam on the right.

Back in 1990, the Voyager project intended to deactivate Voyager 1's cameras to save energy. However, before doing so, NASA instructed the probe to take a series of 60 images with the aim of constructing what scientists would later dub the "Family Portrait of the Solar System."

From 6 billion kilometers away, Earth appears as a hazy speck, equivalent to less than a single pixel on Voyager's camera. In contrast, Jupiter and Saturn were sizeable enough to occupy a full pixel within the image.

The moniker "Pale Blue Dot" derives from a 1994 book authored by Carl Sagan, the very same individual who proposed the idea of utilizing Voyager's cameras to capture the distant Earth, ultimately creating this astronomical "selfie."