Machine or mystery
Voyager 1 turned around, photographed the Earth, and then switched its cameras off forever
On 14 February 1990, nearly four billion miles from the Sun and with no scientific target left ahead of it, Voyager 1 pointed its cameras back the way it had come and took a 60-image portrait of the solar system. Earth occupies less than a pixel. Thirty-four minutes after the Earth frames were taken, the cameras were powered off and never used again.
- Revision: 1
- Published: 2026-08-14
- Updated: 2026-08-14
- By: Space Now, edited by J. S. Nova
The image data came home through the Deep Space Network — the same globally distributed antennas that carried the first Moon landing to television, doing the same job at a hundred thousand times the range.
A photograph with no scientific purpose
By 1990 Voyager 1 was past every planet it would ever visit and climbing out of the solar system. Turning the cameras back toward the Sun risked pointing sensitive optics near a bright source, spent limited power and time, and would produce no data any instrument team had requested. Carl Sagan had proposed the idea in 1981; it took nine years to be carried out. The value being argued for was not measurement but perspective.
How the portrait was actually made
The sequence was deliberate and slow. On 13 February the spacecraft warmed its cameras for three hours. It then worked inward — Neptune first, then Uranus, Saturn, Mars, the Sun, Jupiter, Earth and Venus — building 60 frames into the first family portrait of the solar system. The Earth frames were taken at 04:48 GMT on 14 February 1990, from a distance of about 3.7 billion miles from the Sun.
Getting it home, and then going quiet
Taking the picture was not the end of the problem. At that distance the data returns slowly and faintly: it took until 1 May 1990, across four separate communication passes with the Deep Space Network, for all of the image data to reach Earth. The cameras were switched off 34 minutes after the Earth exposures — power and warmth were needed for instruments that would keep returning data for decades, and there was nothing left worth photographing.
Chronology
Generated from dated relations, with the precision of each date stated.
- year precisionCarl Sagan proposes using a Voyager spacecraft to photograph Earth from the outer solar system.
- day precisionVoyager 1 photographs Earth at 04:48 GMT from about 3.7 billion miles, then powers its cameras off 34 minutes later.
- day precisionThe last of the image data arrives on Earth after four Deep Space Network passes.
Related records
explained by
Why photograph the Earth from four billion miles, and then stop?
Confidence: high · 1990-02-14 (day precision)
relates to
The same antennas, a hundred thousand times further out.
Confidence: high · 1990-02-14 (day precision)
Inspect the record2 assertions, each with its source
Every assertion, its source class, and any conflict or uncertainty in the record.
The photograph of Earth was taken on 14 February 1990 by Voyager 1 at a distance of about 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometres) from the Sun, as part of a 60-image family portrait; the Earth frames were taken at 04:48 GMT, 34 minutes before the cameras were powered off for good. Sagan proposed the idea in 1981.
Source class: space agency recordNASA Science — Voyager 1's Pale Blue DotView the source
It took until 1 May 1990, across four separate communications passes with NASA's Deep Space Network, for all of the image data to arrive back on Earth.
Source class: space agency recordNASA JPL — 'Pale Blue Dot' Images Turn 25View the source
CorrectionsNone recorded
No corrections recordedThis record has not been corrected since it was published.