Incredible! 150 Billion Pixel Photo of the Galaxy

I think it's been posted a few times -- that's a bad link too. Anyway I looked at it again so thanks for posting.

 

First link is fine, it's just a few posts down.

And yeah, friggin' mind blowing.

 

Looking at pictures like these make you feel so small, yet large at the same time...sort of like a being a midget with a 10 inch schlong...

 

I only looked at those few posted pictures in the OP, spaced out a bit, got lost in the stars, and then I looked around the room, so small, miniscule, and trivial in comparison, and realized...

I could go for something to eat.

 

Yeah, this one works -- I was looking at through another link -- pure awesome. It just shows how tiny we are, but we are not so insignificant that we can't realize that and create images that put human life into perspective.

 

So many stars..

 

Something to really mess with your head... zoom in as far as you can at any point on in this picture. Even at the dark, lonely-looking edges. As you get closer in, you start to realize how many stars are actually there. And the density of them all; it's staggering. Now realize that on average, there is about one star per 1,250 cubic light years in this galaxy (assuming on the high end of estimations, 400 billion stars). That puts them at nearly 11 light years apart on average.

Doesn't sound like that much, right? As densely packed as they look, it would take the fastest spacecraft ever built over 300,000 years just to get from one star to next. Now zoom back out. You can't even see the gaps anymore.

 

Even as someone who ponders the enormity of the universe on a damn near daily basis, this still blew me away. The sheer density of stars is truly amazing.

 

Funny... it made me think about how empty the universe ultimately is. Almost everywhere you could possibly be in this picture, there would be nothing you could reach in a thousand lifetimes.

 

Well, of course that's one way to look at it, and I absolutely understand what you're saying. I was just looking at it more in comparison to what you see when you look up at the sky, even on a very starry night and say "look at all those stars". It's comical compared to this.

 

I want this photo on my wall somewhere, so I have a daily reminder of how insignificant/meaningless our actions and life are.

 

My god it's full of stars.

 

Meh, it's just a bunch of dots.

jk, **** is crazy. There truly are more stars out there than there are sand on earth.

 

The ones that are really far away... I believe those are galaxies, not stars.

 

I saw several Starbucks over towards the right side.

 

picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies. somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly, a girl with kaleidoscope eyes. cellophane flowers of yellow and green towering over your head. look for the girl with the sun in her eyes and she's gone.