Most of us have lived our lives pretty rooted in the idea that humans are the "dominant species."
In our day-to-day lives we rarely face off un-armed against predators that might see us as snacks. We live in cities that allow us to get used to the idea that we can conquer and shape the world around us. Even many of our religions teach humanity as the central and most important thing in the universe.
Sometimes, though, something comes along that reminds us of how truly small we are in the grander scheme of things. Like this image.
That smattering of spots is actually a section of the stars in our galaxy. All of humanity could be in this image and we wouldn't even be important enough to warrant our own spot.
If each spot is a star, and our sun is in the image, then all of us with all of our problems―war, famine, disease―and all of our great achievements and monuments all exist in the tiny spaces between these dots. In fact, many of these dots have their own planets and solar systems.
And this is just one piece of one galaxy. Science estimates that the part of the universe we can observe contains a few hundred billion galaxies.
Cue Twitter having an existential meltdown.
andrew_1995 / Twitter
And handling that meltdown with humor, because 2020.
f*ckmarrywill / Twitter
Do you find these sorts of things mind-blowing? Or see anything mundane in Hubble's image?
@Callipygian_Sea/X
@FredMas26593657/X
@pearlclutcher61/X
@trump-putinsbitch/Bluesky
@drewfromtv/Threads
@WhiteHouse/X