And Now for a Bit of Perspective

A little perspective can be a good thing, so the next time you feel a need to have your mind blown, just watch this short video and you're sure to come away with a "perspective reset."

Some additional perspective: On a clear night, using only your naked eye, you can see about 5,000 stars, and the furthest of them is around 21,000 light-years away, but most are much closer. The most distant object visible (barely!) with the naked eye is the Andromeda galaxy, 2.5 million light-years distant. Everything else you see at night is "only" a few thousand light-years away.

If you were to travel from the Milky Way to Andromeda, it's possible that most of your trip would occur in total blackness; you would almost certainly traverse areas of space where no stars are visible to the naked eye (because of sheer distance).  You'd look out the space ship's window and see nothing at all (unless you used a telescope).

More perspective: If you were to shrink the solar system down to where the earth is a foot away from the sun, the nearest star would be 50 miles away. But if you were to shrink the Milky Way galaxy down to a foot in diameter, the nearest galaxy is only 25 feet away.

I know. Hard to imagine.

Sci-fi authors: Take note!