The Helix Nebula

[In this image provided by NASA shows a newly expanded image of the Helix nebula Friday Aug. 24, 2007 lending a festive touch to the fourth anniversary of the launch of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. This spectacular object, a dying star unraveling into space, is a favorite of amateur and professional astronomers alike. Spitzer has mapped the expansive outer structure of the six-light-year-wide nebula, and probed the inner region around the central dead star to reveal what appears to be a planetary system that survived the star's chaotic death throes. Spitzer launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on August 25, 2003. (AP Photo/NASA-JPL)]

The Pale Blue Dot:

Thanks to Eric, whose gmail status message turned me on to Pale Blue Dot, a film by George Fu. Go watch it. It's that good. You'll need to download a DivX video player plugin for your brower, which is somewhat irksome if you're on a low bandwidth connection, but worth it for those blessed with broadband.

The short is less than six minutes long, but that's more than long enough to deliver a a moving narration from Carl Sagan that puts humanity and our small planet in the kind of perspective that perhaps only an astronomer can.

When that narrative mashed up over a montage of dozens of the most iconic moments from the history of film and popular culture, c'est voila:

Transcendence. Or something approaching it.