The Voyager 1 spacecraft took off in 1977 to paint the first portrait of the outer solar system, photographing Jupiter, Saturn, and beyond. When it completed its mission at the fringes of our solar system, Sagan came up with the idea of turning its cameras around and pointing them at Earth to take one final image. The now-iconic photo, known as the Pale Blue Dot, depicts Earth as a tiny pixel—a barely perceptible “mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam,” in Sagan’s memorable words.
