NASA geography lesson from space

Astronauts Mike Hopkins and Rick Mastracchio from the International Space Station.

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Laniakea: galaxy supercluster home to the Milky Way

Putting everything into perspective.

Laniakea — Hawaiian for "immeasurable heaven" — is the vast area of the universe that's home to the Milky Way which is tiny in the greater scheme of things.

Human beings are the most amazing creatures; this planet and everything alive or that's ever been alive is a complete fluke in terms of astronomical odds of existence

Death cults and chasers of glory, meaningless baubles, ego, who measure themselves by their possessions, who seek power over other human beings, seem so primitive anyway, but watching this film clip explaining Laniakea, they seem so way off-beam, you almost feel sorry for them.

A bit like this ...

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Transit of Venus: live coverage

Be amazed.

Nasa's live feed here.

Hubble Ultra Deep Field: the mystery of space in 3D

And now for something a million billion miles from the travails of our tiny blue planet. Smaller than ants in the great scheme of things, it's estimated it would take only ten thousand years for nature to obliterate every sign of human existence. We'll be blown away like dust and no-one would know we were ever here.

So here is "an animation that was rendered using the measured redshift of all 10,000 galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image": the furthest we've ever seen into deep space. A bit of perspective to meditate on over the holiday season.

Or, to put it another way ...



Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer Launch — WISE

Hubble Ultra Deep Field: the mystery of space in 3D

And now for something a million billion miles from the travails of our tiny blue planet. Smaller than ants in the great scheme of things, it's estimated it would take only ten thousand years for nature to obliterate every sign of human existence. We'll be blown away like dust and no-one would know we were ever here.

So here is "an animation that was rendered using the measured redshift of all 10,000 galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image": the furthest we've ever seen into deep space. A bit of perspective to meditate on over the holiday season.

Or, to put it another way ...



Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer Launch — WISE