Picture #3

 

Picture from apod.nasa.gov.

I enjoy looking at stars for several reasons. Mostly, for perspective. This third picture is of the Tarantula Nebula. Every one of those little dots you can see is a star, not at all unlike our own sun. Those solid, gaseous looking arms are even more stars; apparently too dense to even tell apart. When you look up at the stars, you are looking at a galaxy from the inside. There are millions of stars in the Milky Way, and billions of galaxies in the universe. If you were to look at our galaxy, from the distance you are now viewing this nebula, the Earth would be so small as to appear invisible. When you consider that you, one average human, are roughly 1.26 sextillion times smaller than Earth, it gives you some perspective as to how infinitesimally tiny you are. Whenever you have a problem, like if your girlfriend forgot to text you or you missed the first 10 minutes of Secret Life, remember that in the grand scheme of the universe, nothing you do means anything to anything.

Have a terrific day.