Our Size in the Universe

Putting Things into Perspective

Recently in my science class, we watched a video called "The Known Universe." As this is a popular video, you've probably seen it floating around on the Internet somewhere, such as YouTube. It shows the amount of time it takes for light from stars to go to the Earth. This video made me realize that all of us are no more than a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a speck of dust in this universe and that we are almost totally isolated, as the Andromeda galaxy, the closest galaxy to the Milky Way galaxy, is 200 million light-years away from us. (Imagine how long it would take to travel there, remembering that a trip to Pluto and back would take about thirty years.)

I've noticed that people on this planet like to complain about petty things, such as relationships and who said what about who. Knowing that you are nothing more than a speck of salt in an ocean really puts the importance of these things into perspective. There is just no purpose to complaining about such petty things when we should really be worrying about the big things and life. The little things in life don't really matter in the scheme of things, so why worry about them at all?

Take some of the Facebook statuses that most people see on a daily basis. People say things like, "Ugh, I don't want to go to school in the morning," or the constant, "I can't BELIEVE what my boyfriend said last night." What irks me about these asinine Facebook statuses is that when someone finds out that they are, in the scheme of things, nothing at all and these problems that occur day to day are not important and shouldn't really matter to anyone. Of course, there will always be large problems in life that you really should worry about, like a divorce or a death, and those are the things that need to be taken seriously.

How Big You Actually Are

Imagine the biggest thing that you possibly think of. The first thing that will come to mind is probably Mt. Everest, the largest mountain in the world located in the Himalayan Mountain Range that runs through southeastern Asia. Now imagine one hundred of this monstrous mountain stacked one on top of the other. That would be even CLOSE to how big the universe is. As a matter of fact, that would be barely visible from space.

If you had a rather large basket full of one hundred suns, that still wouldn't be anywhere close to the size of universe. Think all of the galaxies in the universe put together. Still not even close.

The point I am trying to make here is that there is no such thing as something bigger or more important than the universe, despite what self-centered people like to think. As a matter of fact, the universe is always going to be the biggest thing ever. In all directions, the universe is infinite. Think about travelling in a spaceship going at the speed of light going in one direction from Earth. You would never get to the edge of the universe and you would most likely be wasting your time.


Stay tuned for the next post!