Our Immense Universe

The Hubble Ultra-Deep Field image below is of a tiny region of space in the constellation Fornax, composited from Hubble Space Telescope data accumulated over a period from September 24, 2003 through January 16, 2004. It is the deepest image of the universe ever taken, looking back approximately 13 billion years (to between 400 and 800 million years after the Big Bang). This image was taken in an “empty” section of the sky with a low density of bright stars in the near-field, allowing much better viewing of dimmer, more distant objects. The image contains an estimated 10,000 galaxies.

Our Sun is only one of billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. And the Milky Way is only one of billions of galaxies in the universe. Do you think we are alone?
In 1990, upon request by Carl Sagan, NASA commanded the Voyager 1 spacecraft, having completed its primary mission and now leaving the solar system, to turn its camera around to take a final photograph of Earth across a great expanse of space. The Pale Blue Dot is this photograph of planet Earth from over 6 billion kilometers away, showing it against the vastness of space.