Commander Frank Borman of Apollo 8, wished this sentiment to the world on Christmas Eve 1968. He and Pilot William Anders were the first people to ever see the whole planet earth at once.

Earth was a small blue sphere, utterly insignificant against an infinite sea of blackness. Commander Borman related feeling homesick and nostalgic, yet fearful at how small and fragile earth is.

Ironically I find the most appropriate Christmas sentiment was made by the late, great author and scientist, and committed atheist, Carl Sagan. One of mankind’s greatest achievements of intellect, Voyager I, was leaving the solar system 4 billion miles away and Sagan suggested that they turn its cameras back and take a picture of earth. Unintentionally earth showed up as a small blue dot illuminated by a light ray. Reflecting on this photograph Sagan wrote in his book the Pale Blue Dot:

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.

In the radio address on Christmas eve 1968 the world was in turmoil, commnader Borman struggled to express just how insignificant it all was, and how we are all earthlings above all. He simply said:

Merry Christmas to all of you, all of you on the good Earth

Ditto!