Carl Sagan made a habit of humbling hubris. Although he was a master of narrative, pacing and awe, Sagan's salient talent was re-calibrating perspective in a cosmological context. Where most people saw a periodic table, Sagan saw star stuff. Where I would definitely see an apple pie, Sagan saw the origins of the universe. And when NASA flung Voyager 1 through our solar system, Sagan saw an opportunity to take the most ambitious selfie of all time.
3.7 billion miles from Earth, Sagan convinced NASA to turn Voyager 1's camera around so that it could take this picture:
Earth "suspended in a sunbeam"
On first inspection it doesn't look like much. A pale blue dot perhaps. But that dot is Earth. And where you and I might see a few scruffy pixels, Sagan saw an opportunity to contextualize humanity.
Sagan published his thoughts on this image in his book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. Despite his deteriorating health, Sagan also managed to record an audiobook version before he died. One monologue from this reading became particularly famous and has since been widely used by amateur video editors in the YouTube age. The following video is a fantastic example (please watch it if you have time):
I first saw a version of this video in 2007. I was struck not just by its conclusions (most cosmology is humbling), but by the tightness of Sagan's prose and his penetrating delivery. Many variations of this video exist. Most are good, some are great. Whilst it's nice to see such widespread appreciation for Sagan's words in video, most versions are (understandably) very similar.
I was therefore delighted to find this cartoon version of the Pale Blue Dot narrative by Gavin Aung Than. It's refreshing to see the piece so gorgeously articulated in a different medium. And whilst most videos (like the one above) try to capture the grandeur of his words, Than's cartoon focuses on the Pale Blue Dot from the perspective of a young Carl Sagan. If the purpose of the original Pale Blue Dot image was to re-contextualize humanity, then this cartoon re-imagines Sagan as an adult with child-like fascination. He epitomised universal curiosity and it's this naive, juvenile perspective - the image of a child looking into space - that all scientists share.