Was Voyager 1 and the Pale Blue Dot a hoax?

Astronomers Are Already Planning for the Next 'Pale Blue Dot'. In 2019, the New Horizons spacecraft will attempt to break the record for the farthest image ever taken of Earth. The planet Earth as a very small dot, seen through a sunbeam. read more

The photograph was used as the title subject for Sagan's 1994 book, The Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. Much more recently, people have applied modern image analysis and enhancement algorithms to the picture, and it's been shown that the picture also contains a very faint dot adjacent to the earth: the moon. read more

Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of planet Earth taken on February 14, 1990, by the Voyager 1 space probe from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles, 40.5 AU), as part of that day's Family Portrait series of images of the Solar System. read more

"Twenty-five years ago, Voyager 1 looked back toward Earth and saw a 'pale blue dot,' " an image that continues to inspire wonderment about the spot we call home," said Ed Stone, project scientist for the Voyager mission, based at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. read more