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

By Nancy Atkinson - February 14, 2010 at 8:23 AM UTC | Stars

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 Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com