The Pale Blue Dot


(click the small play button at bottom left to watch the video here,
or click the large one in the middle to go to the youtube site)

Carl Sagan was an amazing astronomer who also happened to be a gifted story teller. His passion and eloquence about the universe led him to writing about 20 books, including ‘his most well known, ‘Cosmos’. This book became an incredible 13 part TV series, which was aired in Australia in the early 80s, and for me was a great revelation. It informed my burgeoning atheism, and gave me a sense of wonder of the universe and a humble sense of perspective from which I have not recovered 🙂

There is now a 7 DVD set of Cosmos available (check out eBay or Amazon, or the ABC shop if you want region 4). This series is a must for anyone who wants to be humbled by the incredible nature of the universe. I will never forget Carl mathematically ‘proving’ the existence of life on other planets, simply by mathematical equation on a blackboard.

I mourned his passing in 1996, but his life work lives on and hopefully it will inspire the next generation as much as it did me.