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Did You Know How Insignificant the Earth Really Is in the Universe?

- If we were alone in the Universe, it would be a terrible waste of space

By: Lucian Dorneanu, Science Editor


Nothing really proves how insignificant our planet is in the sea of stars and dust that makes up the known Universe, than the famous "Pale Blue Dot" photograph of the Earth, taken by Voyager 1, then located four billion miles away.

This picture shows Earth as a dot suspended in a beam of sunlight, situated against the backdrop of the Solar System. The saddest thing is that voyager was only its vantage point on the edge of the solar system.

If you're already depressed by now, I leave you with a quote from astronomer Carl Sagan, who wrote a book inspired by the photo:

"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you know, everyone you love, everyone you've ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines. Every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."



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