Earth, our beautiful marble-like planet, is home to five oceans and seven continents, among which more than seven billion people reside.
We’ve become accustomed to the ecosystems, cultures and evolution of life here, and we understand our terrestrial planet’s position within our solar system as the only one known to foster life.
In terms of size, however, our planet is only fifth largest in our solar system, with Jupiter being the largest at over 1,000 percent of Earth’s size. In comparison to our solar system, life here on Earth is relatively miniscule. Beyond the sun, there are giant, supergiant and hypergiant stars that make up a family of approximately 200 billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way, alone.
Within the Milky Way is our solar system, full of stars and planets and life here on Earth. Outside of the Milky Way, light years away, are billions of other galaxies.
Closest to the Milky Way is the Andromeda Galaxy, predicted to collide with our galaxy in a few billion years, as showcased in the video above. The video, uploaded to YouTube by morn1415, illustrates just how miraculous the scope of space truly is, from light days to light years to billions of light years.
The overwhelming view will prompt you to reconsider the trivialities of life compared to the boundless reality in which we live — not to mention, ponder the possibility of life light years away.