?????? On February 14, 1990, NASA commanded the Voyager 1 spacecraft, having completed its primary mission, to turn around to photograph the planets of the Solar System. One image Voyager returned was of Earth, showing up as a "pale blue dot" in the grainy photo.

??????? 1990年2月14日，美国“旅行者1号”（voyager 1）飞船，飞到了太阳系的边缘。控制中心让它回过头，最后看一眼它出发的地球。下面就是当时拍下的照片，“黯淡的蓝点”。NASA网站描述“超过40亿公里远” (距离地球大约64亿公里)。

????????In a commencement address delivered May 11, 1996, Sagan related his thoughts on the deeper meaning of the photograph:

??????? 1996年5月11日，在毕业典礼演说上，著名的美国科普作家卡尔·萨根（Carl Sagan）对这张照片的深意有感而发，写了一篇短文《黯淡的蓝点》（pale blue dot），后来成为名篇。

Look again at that dot. 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. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

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 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 this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, 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. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

再看一下这个点吧。它在那里。那就是我们的家，我们的一切。在它上面，有你爱的每个人、你认识的每个人、你听说过的每个人。历史上的每一个人，都在它上面度过了自己的一生。所有我们的欢乐和痛苦，所有言之凿凿的宗教、意识形态和经济思想，所有猎人和强盗，所有英雄和懦夫，所有文明的创造者和毁灭者，所有的皇帝和农夫，所有热恋中的青年情侣，所有的父母、满怀希望的孩子、发明者和探索者，所有精神导师，所有腐败的政治家，所有“超级明星”，所有“最高领导人”，所有圣徒和罪人，从人类这个种族存在的第一天起——都发生在这颗悬浮在太阳光中的尘埃上。

地球是宇宙竞技场中的一个小舞台。那些将军和帝王，那些成败和荣辱，那些血流成河，那些霸业和辉煌，不过只发生在这个点上的一部分地区，转瞬即逝。想想这个小点上，一个角落的居民对另一个角落的居民，往往会表现出无限的残忍，无所不在的误解，互相残杀的热切，以及难以化解的仇恨。

我们故作姿态，我们自以为很重要，我们自欺欺人地认定人类在宇宙中的特权地位，这一切都被这个白光中的小点推翻了。我们的星球是宇宙无边的黑暗中一颗孤独的尘埃。茫茫黑暗中，无尽的未知，我们一点都不知道，哪里可以找到帮助。

地球是迄今为止，唯一的已知存在生命的地方。至少在可预见的将来，人类也不会找到其他可以移民的地方。访问其他星球，可以做到。定居在那里，没有可能。不管是否接受，目前地球是我们仅有的立足之地。

据说天文学是一种令人产生自卑、塑造人格的科学。也许这张表现我们的世界是如何渺小的照片，是人类愚蠢自负的最好证明。对我来说，它更表明，我们人类之间必须友善相处，珍惜和保护这个黯淡的蓝点。它是我们唯一的家。

?????????

?附图

(图中那个暗淡的蓝色小点，就是我们赖以生存的的地球)

谢谢随机博客的Pitt带来的这篇值得我们沉思的文章。