See the whole Universe at once in this unique logarithmic view
7 days ago
- #astronomy
- #universe
- #cosmology
- The visible Universe extends 46.1 billion light-years, with light from the Big Bang still reaching us.
- Earth is minuscule on a cosmic scale, with a diameter of 12,742 km, barely noticeable in the vast Universe.
- Logarithmic scales help visualize cosmic distances, making the Sun, Mercury, and Mars appear equidistant.
- The Oort Cloud lies about 10,000 AU from the Sun, a vast distance on a linear scale but small logarithmically.
- Bright stars in Earth's sky are mostly within 1,000 light-years, part of the Orion arm of the Milky Way.
- The Local Galactic Group includes the Milky Way and neighboring galaxies, just a step beyond our galaxy's spiral arms.
- Large-scale structures like the Virgo supercluster span over 100 million light-years, showing galaxy clustering.
- The cosmic web reveals the Universe's largest structures, though dark energy may eventually tear them apart.
- The cosmic microwave background (CMB) provides a snapshot of the Universe's earliest moments after the Big Bang.
- Artist Pablo Carlos Budassi's logarithmic map illustrates the Universe's vast scale, spanning 20 orders of magnitude.