This is one of my new favorite astrophotos. Cassini turned to look at Earth through Saturn’s rings, visible as a single pixel in the sky. A similar photo of the Pale Blue Dot was taken by Voyager 1. Carl Sagan was one of the masterminds of that project, so instead of my own philosophical musings I’ll simply defer to one of Sagan’s books.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

–Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot