The Known Universe
 

Here is a video made by the American Museum of Natural History to make you feel really really infinitesimally small, and give you hope that one day we'll get to meet some aliens out there :)

very nice, nice to feel so smll after a week of nonstop eating :D

Ha, another "found on the net" article I had come across earlier and had wanted to post myself as well.

Thank you for not being as much of a time-squander as myself.
I enjoyed this very much.

Way cool. I was convinced it was the one I'd seen already but it was new to me. Thanks. Anyone know why there's that hourglass shape of blackness we haven't been able to map? I'm guessing part of our galaxy is in the way or something. But that only accounts for one half of it I'd think.

Yes, It is correct !

Thank you for sharing that.

I'd have to assume that they're only really clearly visable from the areas around the north and south poles and the other areas are clearly visable from normally inhabited areas. Most of this is along the plane of our solar system, where people have been searching for planets so they pick up a lot of stars and galaxies as they look.

Extrapolation: Understand that to assume a god watches over you, that you are just a spec in the grand scheme of things and to assume that we're at the center of this huge universe is preposterous.

Talk about letting your own beliefs colour your observations.

for some reason this will not show....just a blank with a small box in the upper left with a red square,green circle and blue triangle on white...??????


pm me if you can help............xoxoxoo

Wow...that was absolutely beautiful.

life is good

It really really was.

This could all be completely made up and I wouldn't have a clue... I thought someone was pulling my leg when I first watched this and saw how big Arcturus was.

Okay, I haven't watched the video posted above as of yet (second one provided by oliver1984), but my educated guess upon reading "(video set) to Orchestration" immediately springs forth to mind the musical piece known as Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra / Zorastar)

Am I right about it though? Even if I'm not, that is the piece that I think would be the most obvious and fitting companion to such a scale from Earth to the Sun to Antares and the Megastars of Celestial Bodies.

Also Sprach Zarathustra is from A Space Odyssey right? It isn't that. I don't know what it is. Good guess anyway.

The song is used alot in different contexts, but the easiest way to describe it is a gradual building subject culminating into a grand medley of a crescendo. I tried, at least. The subjects vary from selling sex to telling someone's life story. And yes, it was featured in 2001 (I beleieve it was the Monolith's rays scene, but I could be mistaken)


I could add a little more about the (little) known universe:

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Nothing | DISCOVER Magazine

Did anyone else, upon the viewing of this video, think about the Total Perspective Vortex from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? The ultimate torture device that shows you just how SMALL you are in relation to the whole universe. That was my first thought when I watched this.

Nice find LT.

Even though I was late in featuring this, here is the video's synopsis:

The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world’s most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas that is maintained and updated by astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History. The new film, created by the Museum, is part of an exhibition, Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan through May 2010.

Anyone who says that there is no other life out there is completely nuts!

I just saw this, it is great. Thanks for sharing this with everyone Tip. "These are a few of my favorite things!"

Much appreciated, little_tippler.

Narrow points of view are the problem.
Expanded points of view are the solution.

This is a step in the right direction!

i couldnt watch it all. :( slow internet.

i thought i would share this with you guys though.
The Scale of the Universe

thought it was pretty neat.