Living Beyond Myself

jtotheizzoe:

The Scale of the Known Universe

We mere Homo sapiens are notoriously awful at putting things into perspective. And not just when it comes to the fact that breaking up with your boyfriend or missing that one really cool party is not, in fact, “the worst thing to ever happen, EVER” (I hear the Black Plague was actually much, much worse).

We are also incredibly bad at putting cosmological size and time into a scale that makes sense to us. The universe is old. Really old (how old?). And we humans are not so old. Likewise, the (known) universe is very big. VERY BIG. This video from AMNH uses actual astronomical observations to try and convey exactly how big it really is.

Check out these previous looks at the scale of an expanding universe, this interactive tool to zoom in and out on the size of everything, and a video exploration into the sizes of atoms up to the universe using food.

Of course, you shouldn’t ever feel worthless. You should just enjoy knowing how much is out there waiting to be known. You’re a unique snowflake. Yes, even you. But that guy over there? Jury’s out on him.

(by AMNHorg)