Also, on note #2... the vastness of the universe... I think some people, even really intelligent people, fail to understand how utterly massive the UNIVERSE is. I mean, our galaxy alone is so gargantuan in size as to be almost imperceptably large for human imagination... then to kick that up by 1000x + the space in between visible galaxies? Maybe it should be explained more simply... I think Douglas Adams put it best in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
"The Universe is Big. Really big. It may seem like a long way to the corner chemist, but compared to the Universe, that's peanuts."
It's overly simplistic, but the true size of the universe-at-large is just mind-numbingly, brain-explodingly, life-destroyingly big.
Edit:
http://www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home...bbin/cosmo.htm