One world.
No official flag.

WORLD PEACE FLAG

James William van Kirk

A Methodist minister’s maximalist answer to world unity: a globe, stars and rainbow bands on blue. The Universal Peace Congress adopted it, but no nation—or planet—did.

EARTH FLAG

John McConnell

A photographic Earth floating on deep blue. Five hundred early versions were handed out during the Apollo 11 Moon Watch in Central Park; it later became closely tied to Earth Day.

FLAG OF EARTH

James W. Cadle

A farmer from Illinois reduced our neighbourhood to three discs: yellow Sun, blue Earth, white Moon, all in black space. Its easy-to-sew geometry helped it catch on at observatories and among SETI researchers.

INTERNATIONAL FLAG OF PLANET EARTH

Oskar Pernefeldt

Seven linked rings make a flower—life, connection and the parts of Earth bound together. The blue field stands for water, essential to life, and the oceans covering most of the planet.

PULSAR MAP FLAG

@braingrub_

A recent flag adaptation of the Pioneer plaque’s galactic return address. Fourteen rays encode pulsars around the Sun; an extraterrestrial reader could, in principle, use their periods to locate us in space and time.

Authorship note: Frank Drake devised the underlying map with Carl Sagan; Linda Salzman Sagan drew the Pioneer plaque. The flag arrangement itself is the modern proposal.