The Vastness Of The Universe Putting Into Perspective Our Insignificance, and Significance

This photo says a lot to me. The earth, alone. In darkness, silence. Far, far from the sun. Suspended in space, or so it seems.

With nothing to rest on. To the human brain, difficult to reconcile. Countering our understanding of gravity as keeping us grounded on the planet. But, here, the sun’s gravitational pull keeping planet earth suspended in space around it. Talk about letting go. Trust.

In every moment the sun rotating on its axis, the sun shining its life-giving light on us.

This photo also says a lot to me. A comparison of the planets in our solar system, by scale. Planet Earth is third from the left, considerably smaller than the massive Saturn and Neptune, never mind the sun, the largest body in yellow. Planet Earth a dot on our central star.

The solar system is one of 100–400 billion star systems in the Milky Way galaxy.

It is estimated that there are between 200 billion to 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe. Observable universe.

In a map of the universe, planet earth is supposedly located in one of the corners. Would it matter if it were located in the middle?

The human reasoning mind believes that humans are the highest life form in the universe.

Many years ago, there was an article in Scientific American about Planetary Nebulae, a misnomer because they are not planets, but they looked like planets when they were first seen through a telescope in the 1780s.

Today, a planetary nebula is thought to be a glowing shell of gas ejected from giant stars late in their lives. The Scientific American article discussed how the Hubble Spacecraft had ventured farther into space and gathered more information on them, redefining what they are. The Hubble Spacecraft has only gone so far in our solar system.

Meanwhile, here we are.