THE VIDEO SHELF · cosmic perspective
Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot
Carl Sagan's narration of the Pale Blue Dot passage, reflecting on the Voyager photograph of Earth as a tiny speck in space. It is a short meditation on humanity's smallness and shared home.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN commenters return to it for perspective, comfort and Sagan's soothing voice, and suggest watching it periodically.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- carlsagandotcom
- Topic
- cosmic perspective
- Format
- other
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 5
- HN mentions in dataset
- 15
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2011–2026
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
Here's a YouTube link to the entire Pale Blue Dot bit by Sagan: [VIDEO] Sagan is absolutely amazing. It really does put things in perspective.
jwatzman on Hacker News · 2011-02
In The Size of the Human Radio-Broadcast Bubble in the Milky Way GalaxyI really loved the Pale blue dot by Carl Sagan. His voice is soo smooth and relaxing that sometimes I just hear it for his voice even though the content is nothing less than amazing. P.S. Unfortunately Sagan died before the book recording could be …
Crazyontap on Hacker News · 2018-12
In Ask HN: Which audiobooks did/do you like?I'm sorry for your loss. When something bad happens I often find myself going back to Carl Sagan's words on the Pale Blue Dot [0]. Puts everything in perspective, and makes everything feel insignificant, when compared with the vastness of what lies out there. [0] …
WhiteSage on Hacker News · 2019-10
In Depressed People See the World More Realistically (2017)
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.