Just before the Voyager 1 space probe left our solar system in 1990, the late astronomer Carl Sagan requested that it take one last photo of Earth. The photograph has become known as “The Pale Blue Dot” and shows our planet as a tiny speck in a vast universe.
Sagan’s moving essay on this photograph has now been combined with some stunning footage and concludes with Sagan appealing to humanity to take better care of our planet and of one another.
For me, the high point of the video occurs around 2.55 where Sagan seems to experience and express Psalm 8 humility: “It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.”
However, I was especially stunned by his desperate words around the 2.20 mark: ”In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.”
Don’t you want to scream: “Such help did come, and we crucified Him!”
But He rose again, victorious over our greatest enemies – sin, death, and Satan.
And right now He reigns over this pale blue dot and every other dot in the universe.
And He still offers to visit us, to take up residence in our hearts by faith, and to save us from ourselves.
Now that’s extra-terrestrial!