What is our purpose?
Ever since my intellect prompted me to think about life on earth, I've been wondering why we, human beings, have turned a blind eye towards our origins and purpose. We have made superb advancements in science and technology. We have built huge, powerful telescopes to look into the sky and understand the universe. We have even witnessed creation of planets.We have gathered information about a star's life cycle, solar system, asteroids & comets, moons of different planets, galaxies, black holes and the list goes on. Never before we did have access to so much information about Earth, our own home, and our surroundings.
Armed with this information, now we know how puny our own planet is in comparison with other celestial bodies. But does each one of us realize this ? Perhaps not. And that's one of the reasons why earth is plagued today by hatred, corruption and other social evils.
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| Image source: Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PaleBlueDot.jpg) |
Carl Sagan & his work
This precisely is one of the topics articulated by Carl Sagan, a famous American astronomer & cosmologist. A few years ago, one of my friends introduced me to the great work done by Carl Sagan and one particular piece struck a chord with me - "A pale blue dot". The Pale Blue Dot is the title of a photograph of planet Earth taken on February 14, 1990, by the Voyager 1 space probe from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers.In this photograph, Earth's apparent size is less than a pixel; the planet appears as a tiny dot against the vastness of space, among bands of sunlight scattered by the camera's optics. In his book by the same title as the photograph, Sagan reflects that "Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot."..."To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known..."
Please go through this impressive short video that shows
a glimpse of Sagan's work with a beautiful narration that would certainly
captivate us. I believe it would help in appreciating the deeper meaning of seemingly
just another photograph, prompting our minds to think in the right direction
and enable us to lead a peaceful life thereby making Earth a better place.
Video source: Youtube (https://youtu.be/p86BPM1GV8M)
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