UPDATE: At long last, NASA made the official announcement that Voyager 1 has now left the solar system, passed the heliosphere, entered interstellar space. The 36-year-old probe is about 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometres) from the Sun.
According to EarthSky and various other astro outlets, the Cassini spacecraft will recreate Voyager 1’s famous “Pale Blue Dot” photograph (triggered by Carl Sagan) by turning its camera back towards Earth and grabbing a snap of the place we call home. This will happen on 19th July (22h27 British Summer Time), so still time for geeky musos to learn my song Pale Blue Dot and sing it out loud and anthemically on the day! Do Youtube your efforts and share…
It’s a simple, little tune, with simple, but hopefully poignant lyrics.
Pale Blue Dot
Although I know that the world keeps turning
It never stops, my stomach’s churning
But, I worry about how much we’re burning
The fantasy of a global village
We pull together in some kind of New Age
But there are those set on rape and pillage
I took a trip, a billion miles I was to roam
Looking back on the place that we call home…
This old planet is broken in two, f you like it or not
Some with panic deep in their hearts, Others won’t stop the rot
This old planet is broken anew, If you like it or not
But, I’m worried about our pale blue dot
Although I know that we can heal the divides
It will take time coming up to size
Beyond our world she won’t hear our cries
Something happened and we don’t know why
When we look up, we can’t see the sky
And in the end it means we just might die
This old planet is broken in two
Whether you like it or not
There is panic deep in our hearts
I’m just worried about our Pale Blue Dot