'PALE BLUE DOT'

28. 'PALE BLUE DOT'

As the Voyager probe passed by Saturn on its journey out of the solar system its camera was turned back for a last photograph of the Earth, visible at that distance as only a pale blue dot all but lost amidst the stellar backdrop.  

The term ‘pale blue dot’ was adopted by the astronomer and writer Carl Sagan for his book of that name. He saw the Voyager image as conveying human insignificance, writing ‘…our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.’

Needless to say I do not agree with Sagan’s conclusion.

 

Just a pale blue dot, they said

As their probe into deep space sped

We're lost in this galactic chatter  

Our issues here just don't matter 

A mere speck amongst the throng 

Nothing to see here, move along 

Now you risk my great derision

When you bring such sterile vision

Though endlessly the skies you've panned

Found worlds as common as the sand

You've yet to find nor ever could

So plain a thing as tree or wood

Alone amongst the stars are we

Built and fashioned for life so free

Set apart from endless dust

A cosmos created just for us

That blue dot's no passing circus

But the heart of God’s true purpose

A story told in fulsome reams 

Haunting all angelic dreams 

That ‘dot’ shows His lofty ways 

A stage for most momentous days

For each and every saint’s head bows

To think of what that ‘dot’ did house

A thing whose wonder overwhelms

Worth more than all the astral realms

The core of all that stellar gloss

A gnarled and rugged wooden Cross.