Friday, May 27, 2011

You Are Here

Just in case you were wondering.
See the Yellow sorta circle? Yep. You're there. Click on it to get a bigger view.
I'm impressed, in case you're wondering about the scale. Try 380 MILLION light years. Each little point of light is a galaxy, the smoky tendrils are superclusters of galaxies. Damn. I almost don't have words.

Also, the map is in 3D. So you can get a idea of how far the galaxies are on the Z axis as well.  Pretty cool, eh?

Click for more

12 comments:

PT Dilloway said...

How anyone can believe we're the only intelligent life in the universe is beyond me when you see something like that. I mean it's pretty much a mathematical certainty from the sheer size of the universe that there's something else out there, though I'm not a big believer that any of it has actually found us yet.

Andrew said...

Even if you don't ascribe to the laws of chance, I don't see how you can view the scope of the universe and actually believe that God put life on only one small pin prick of a dot in the whole thing. I mean, what's the rest of it for, if that's the case? Seriously.

Suze said...

Criminy, I always had the darndest time with the z axis in Analytic Geometry. My brain just does not work that way.

But if you really want your mind blown, look into quantum entanglement and non-locality. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement

I almost don't have words ...

Liz A. said...

Yes, it is pretty cool.

Rusty Carl said...

Rogue - it reminds me of the tweet from Shitmydadsays "No. Aliens exist, I just don't think they came millions of light years just to see earth. Be like driving 1000 miles to go to an Arby's."

Andrew - Agreed, nothing in our daily lives has prepared us to comprehend the immensity of the cosmos. Once we get half an idea of the enormity of the universe then you can't help but think if God made us and us alone, then he's not getting the most use out of the space available.

Suze - Quantum effects are like the enormity of the cosmos in this one way: nothing in our daily lives gives a hint of the weirdness beneath the reality we see. Thanks for the link.

Su said...

Wow, I just finished reading Contact yesterday and today I see this. Perfect timing!

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Are you sure that's us...?

A Beer for the Shower said...

Mind. Blown.

Thanks for that.

Also, those yellow arrows reminded me of the recycling logo. But if the universe is that big, then screw it, let's just hop over to another planet when we destroy this one...

Rusty Carl said...

Su - I wish I could double follow you. Sagan is my own personal hero. I've read Contact a couple of times. I'm quite happy for you.

Alex - Well, technically, we're not in the picture. But it is, more or less, where we stood to take the picture, it's all black there because the bulge of the Milky Way obscures our view of the cosmos across the ecliptic, so we had to blot it out.

On a side note, I like saying 'we', it makes me feel like I was part of the process.

Beer - You raise a good point. There's a lot of room out there. We find that stargate buried in the sand and we've pretty much found the magic toilet to dump all of our crap down.

Trisha said...

I tagged ya!

http://thefarseas.blogspot.com/2011/05/tagged-critique-win-blog-critique-win.html

Regina said...

That can leave you speechless. But it also inspires ideas that there are so many possibilities out there.

Anonymous said...

I think of the YOU ARE HERE signs at the mall. Now we have to ask ourselves, "Now What?"