On Sept. 18, 1977, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft took a photo of Earth and the moon.
It was the first time both the Earth and the moon were captured in a single frame. At the time, Voyager 1 was more than 7 million miles away from Earth. It had launched about two weeks earlier on a mission to explore the outer planets. Voyager 1 passed through the asteroid belt and visited Jupiter and Saturn. Then it took a sharp turn and started heading straight out of the plane of the solar system. Before Voyager 1 went into interstellar space, Carl Sagan convinced NASA to turn its cameras around one last time to take a family portrait of all the planets in the solar system. This family portrait shows Earth as a tiny speck in a ray of sunshine. It is now famously known as the "Pale Blue Dot."
It was the first time both the Earth and the moon were captured in a single frame. At the time, Voyager 1 was more than 7 million miles away from Earth. It had launched about two weeks earlier on a mission to explore the outer planets. Voyager 1 passed through the asteroid belt and visited Jupiter and Saturn. Then it took a sharp turn and started heading straight out of the plane of the solar system. Before Voyager 1 went into interstellar space, Carl Sagan convinced NASA to turn its cameras around one last time to take a family portrait of all the planets in the solar system. This family portrait shows Earth as a tiny speck in a ray of sunshine. It is now famously known as the "Pale Blue Dot."
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TechTranscript
00:00On this day in space.
00:04In 1977, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft took a photo of Earth and the Moon.
00:08It was the first time both the Earth and the Moon were captured in a single frame.
00:12At the time, Voyager 1 was more than 7 million miles away from Earth.
00:16It had launched about two weeks earlier on a mission to explore the outer planets.
00:20Voyager 1 passed through the asteroid belt and visited Jupiter and Saturn.
00:24Then it took a sharp turn and started heading straight out of the plane of the solar system.
00:28Before Voyager 1 went into interstellar space, Carl Sagan convinced NASA
00:32to turn its cameras around one last time to take a family portrait of all the planets in the solar system.
00:36This family portrait shows Earth as a tiny speck in a ray of sunshine.
00:40It is now famously known as the Pale Blue Dot.
00:44And that's what happened on this day in space.
00:48NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology