An image to help keep things in perspective!

Mike Lucey · 30 Oct 2012, 17:23

I intend to use these images of our Milky Way as my desktop. They should help me to keep things in perspective .... we are but tiny tiny tiny specks in the overall picture.

Spectacular 9-gigapixel image of the Milky Way released

The huge 9-gigapixel image contains some 84 million stars

pilou · 30 Oct 2012, 17:50

Take a look here
Robert Gendler

mitcorb · 31 Oct 2012, 01:06

Your subject reminded me of the Atlas of the Universe in this TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/carter_emmart_demos_a_3d_atlas_of_the_universe.html

shura · 31 Oct 2012, 10:59

very beautiful Mike, thank you.

Nothing we could visualize in SU I guess:

wikipedia:
"..The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy 100,000–120,000 light-years in diameter containing 200–400 billion stars..."

"..There are probably more than 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe.."

And now science is in need of assuming manifold dimensions to hypothetically grasp the size of the world surrounding us.

I only have x,y,z, and a taper tool.. yep, makes me feel very tiny sometimes, lol.

TIG · 31 Oct 2012, 11:22

At the other extreme... what's in your head...a neuron firing...

mitcorb · 31 Oct 2012, 11:46

Neuron. Wow, nice visualization.

shura · 31 Oct 2012, 13:17

oh yes, that would be possible with artisan - not too difficult... Nice render TIG

Well, looking into the microcosmos space seems endless as well - now I feel endlessly tiny and mighty large at the same time. This is a moment to read one of Douglas Adams' books to prevent panic..

o2bwln · 1 Nov 2012, 05:23

These images always bring to mind my favorite cartoon strip.

michaliszissiou · 1 Nov 2012, 20:17

Democritus proposed that matter was made up from atoms. There was no real evidence for this idea (which was not completely new), but is explained why change was possible. The atoms were always moving and clustering in various, temporary combinations. Therefore, things seemed to change, but 'not being' never changed into 'being'. (It was assumed that 'not being' was a vacuum, which means that it is in fact not a 'not being' because a vacuum exists in at least four dimensions.) The consequence of this idea is that we are allowed to use our senses, although Democritus warns us to be careful.

JuanV.Soler · 2 Nov 2012, 11:09

what a beauty Mike, thanks
loving eyes of the Milky Way

shura · 2 Nov 2012, 18:21

@o2bwln said:

These images always bring to mind my favorite cartoon strip.

..and also there is something very true about this.

nice one, o2bwln!