The farthest spacecraft from Earth, NASA’s Voyager 1 (see notes 1) probe took a photo of planet Earth on February 14, 1990, from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles, 40 AU (see notes 2) from Earth. The photo is known as the Pale Blue Dot. In the photograph, Earth is shown as a fraction of a pixel (0.12 pixel in size) against the vastness of space. It was a part of the Solar System Family Portrait series of images.
The Voyager 1 spacecraft, which had completed its primary mission and was leaving the Solar System, was commanded by NASA to turn its camera around and take a photograph of Earth across a great expanse of space, at the request of Carl Sagan (see notes 3).
It quickly became the most iconic photo of Earth taken from space.
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