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Where is the Sun in the last photo from Voyager 1?

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The Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft explored Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune before starting their journey toward interstellar space. Here you'll find some of those iconic images, including "The Pale Blue Dot" - famously described by Carl Sagan - and what are still the only up-close images of Uranus and Neptune. read more

If so, I don’t think this was the last photo taken. The earth is the tiny dot in the band of light over on the right hand side. That band is one of the “rays” of light from the sun, which is off the screen to the top. And, yes, it’s “just because of the angle” as you guessed in your details. read more

From Voyager's great distance Earth is a mere point of light, less than the size of a picture element even in the narrow-angle camera. Earth was a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size. Coincidentally, Earth lies right in the center of one of the scattered light rays resulting from taking the image so close to the sun. read more

When Voyager finished the grand tour, it was in a great position to catch most of the family members in one photo. The spaceships' cameras were not needed anymore, both spaceships were not expected to observe additional celestial objects, and the decision was to take one last photo before shutting the cameras down forever. read more

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