I was just briefly watching a show on the Universe and came across this unique little tidbit that puts things in perspective. If our sun was the size of the dot on an "i" <- that big, then our galaxy would be the size of the continental United States. And that's just our galaxy, you have to remember that the Universe is filled with millions upon millions of galaxies each with tons of stars. If a grain of sand represented our sun then there would be more stars in the Universe than there are grains of sand on the entire Earth. It is quite unbelievable.
And just as a bonus tidbit, if you didn't know what that dot on the "i" is called, it's a tittle.
That's amazing. I think people commonly misinterpret the scale of our own solar system, let alone the unbelievable size of the universe (at least the universe we're aware of).
ReplyDeleteIf it's hard enough trying to find the sun in our galaxy (or consider finding the one "dot" while travelling the entire U.S.), immagine how hard it is to point out smaller (but still very large) objects.
And just think that if even 2% of all the stars had a solar system like ours, with some rocky planets and some gas giants, just how many extrasolar planets there are in total.
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