Categories: AstronomyMissions

For Valentine’s Day: Hearts in Space from Sixty Symbols

Yes, we humans excel at seeing patterns and shapes everywhere around us, including out in space. Here, the folks from Sixty Symbols (featuring my friend Astropixie a.k.a Amanda Bauer) celebrate Valentine’s Day by showing several heart-shaped astronomical. Also, as explained in the video, 20 years ago today — on February 14, 1990 — the Voyager 1 spacecraft took the famous “Pale Blue Dot” image, where it turned around and took a picture of Earth. From 6 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) away Earth appeared as a “mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam” as Carl Sagan phrased it. It truly is one of the most “romantic” images ever as it can’t help but evoke strong emotions by anyone who sees it. “That’s here, that’s home, that’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives,” said Sagan.

And if you’re looking for real romance, nobody did it better than Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan. Check out Davin Flateau’s post on his blog, The Perfect Silence, which includes an audio interview with Druyan from NPR where she tells how she and Sagan fell in love.

Happy Valentines Day!

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/