Suspended in a Sunbeam

The Pale Blue Dot

The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph taken of the Earth by the Voyager I spacecraft from a distance of about 6 billion kilometers. As the space probe passed Pluto, it was turned around to capture one last image of the Earth before continuing its journey beyond the solar system. In the photo, the Earth appears as a minuscule point of light, surrounded by the vast emptiness of the cosmos. The inspiration for Suspended in a Sunbeam comes from a speech given by Carl Sagan about the photo.

Program Notes

The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph taken of the Earth by the Voyager I spacecraft from a distance of about 6 billion kilometers. As the space probe passed Pluto, it was turned around to capture one last image of the Earth before continuing its journey beyond the solar system. In the photo, the Earth appears as a minuscule point of light, surrounded by the vast emptiness of the cosmos. The inspiration for the piece comes from a speech given by Carl Sagan about the photo: 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.

Grade Level: 4
Copyright: 2018
Number of Players: 1
Duration: 5:45
Publisher: C. Alan Publications
Category: Solo Works

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Instrumentation

Marimba (5-octave)