Life Beyond the Pale Blue Dot

The Pale Blue Dot was the latest in a long history of association of the color blue with our home in the universe, and with life itself. Two decades before Voyager, as Apollo 8 circled the moon, astronauts recorded the now-famous “Earthrise”—a stunning color photograph of a bright blue-white hemisphere suspended above a gray lunar landscape. Four years later, the Apollo 17 mission captured a beguiling whole-Earth image that became “The Blue Marble.”

http://nautil.us