Fascinating mysteries about the universe

The universe is made up of objects ranging in size from the incredibly small (the atoms from which planets and stars form) to the unbelievably vast (superclusters of thousands of galaxies, with each galaxy containing many billions of stars). The distances of these objects are also so enormous that the units of measurement, such as kilometres (km), that are familiar to many people on the Earth can't be used. it is around 14 billion years old and contains materials with a range of properties that far exceeds anything that can be replicated in laboratories on the Earth. Temperatures range from close to absolute zero (−273.15 ºC) in dense clouds of gas and dust from which stars form, up to many millions of degrees in the interiors of stars. Although interstellar space is not empty, its density is far lower than that found in the best vacuum chambers on the Earth. In some stellar remnants, material the size of a cube of sugar would have a mass of 100 million tonnes! How can anyone know so much about the Universe when no-one has ever explored or directly measured any of it except the tiny part very close to a rather ordinary star in one of many billions of galaxies, and for only a tiny fraction of the time the Universe has existed?

The distance between Earth and the moon doesn't look too far does it? Think again at their farthest point. The earth and the moon are about two hundred and fifty two thousand eighty eight miles away. Inside that distance you could fit every planet in our entire solar system but let's talk about planets, the Great Red Spot on Jupiter that's about two times as big as Earth and Saturn that is about nine times wider than Earth. Saturn's rings are so large that a few of the fragments within them are as large as mountains but that's nothing compared to our Sun, From beyond Neptune four billion miles away lies Earth but a billion is a big number. So let's put that in perspective; one million seconds equals about eleven and a half days. Whereas one billion seconds is equal to over 31 years. Let's step back a bit, here's the size of Earth compared with the size of our Sun. Terrifying right! and here's that exact same Sun from the surface of Mars.Carl Sagan once said that the total number of stars in the universe is larger than all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet Earth and there are some stars out there that are much bigger than our little wimpy Sun. The biggest star we know of according to V Y Canis Majoris is about 2,000 times the diameter of our Sun but none of those compares to the size of a galaxy. In fact if you shrink the size of our solar system down to the size of a quarter and the Milky Way galaxy down using the same scale the diameter of the Milky Way will be roughly the size of the United States. That's because the Milky Way galaxy is huge, it's diameter is about 100,000 light-years wide which when converted to miles is about 621 quadrillion 371 trillion 192 billion 237 million three hundred thirty three thousand eight hundred ninety miles. Inside of all that is you, you live in this tiny portion of the Milky Way but even still our galaxy is a little runt compared with some others. NGC 674 for a spiral galaxy similar to our own is twice as wide as the Milky Way stretching over two hundred thousand light-years across. It is a massive but let's think bigger. In a picture taken by the Hubble telescope there are thousands and thousands of galaxies each containing millions or billions of stars with their own planets. Some of the objects seen here may have formed as many as 11 billion years ago just three billion years after the Big Bang. This period is considered as one of the busiest star-forming periods and just keep this in mind that it is a picture of a very small part of the universe. So if you ever feel upset about your favourite show being cancelled or the fact that they play Christmas music way too early just remember this is your home earth.