The universe is big. This big.

[lloeki]

This [0] IMHO gives more perspective (don't be taken aback by the flashy images, the good stuff comes after, ~2:50 mark) When watching, remember this is when looking at the absolute darkest spot of our sky.

[0] Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 3D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAVjF_7ensg

PS: Inevitably, the title reminded me of this:

   Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly,
   hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you
   may think it's a long way down the road to the
   chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

   -- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[mortenjorck]

I still remember the time I saw the first Hubble Deep Field. The idea that the researchers could point this massive telescope at an empty part of the starfield, run a long exposure, and come back with a plate full of galaxies full of solar systems full of planets, while we've yet to get too far beyond the surface of our own.

A lot of people's first reaction always seems to be "we're so insignificant!" And yet, most fascinating to me is trying to reconcile the vast complexities of our planet and of humans with our physical near-nonexistence in the universe.

We have infinite complexity in approximately zero space. Kind of a strange thing to consider.

[acdanger]

"The universe is a big place. Perhaps the biggest" - Kilgore Trout

[zeteo]

Astronomical numbers may be large but in e.g. computational science people have been dealing with even larger numbers for quite a while now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_number

[geuis]

How many galaxies are in the observable universe?

Quick numbers check:

Author estimates over 200k galaxies in the image. Image covers 0.004% of the sky.

200000/0.00004 = 5,000,000,000 galaxies. (edited, thanks to % help from commenters below)

Finding somewhat standardized values for this rather standard question is frustratingly vague. Estimates range from a few billion to a trillion, though the most frequently quoted number I could find was about 100 billion.

The standard for measurement in the last 10 years or so have been the Hubble Deep Field Survey images. In the last one done, there were about 10k galaxies shown. The HDFS had a square arcminute resolution of 11.5. It would require 12,913,983 HDFS-type images to cover the entire side. (ref: http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=720)

Using these numbers: 12913983 * 10000 = 129,139,830,000 galaxies.

So why the vast difference between the two numbers? My supposition is the new ESO image isn't as deep as the HDFS.

I would argue the larger number, ~129.134 billion galaxies is a bit more accurate.

Damn, 129 billion galaxies. Someone else has to be out there.

[nico_h]

Most probably. THe universe is Big. But it also is Old.

Most probably someone else was or will be out there. Homo Sapiens Sapiens has a currently very short history (~200k years ?). History is 6000 years old (China?). The universe is 13 billion years Old.

Maybe we're late to the party. Or Early.

[jerf]

Galaxies are not evenly distributed. But for all I know this is an unusually sparsely populated part of the sky. Still, your number could shift in either direction by quite a lot.

[zeteo]

The author's calculation seems to be off, 1.2 x 1.5 degrees is 1/72,000 of the total sky area, or roughly 0.0014% (not 0.004%). That still leaves an order of magnitude to be accounted for, but considering the ballpark nature of the 200k estimate and also this being a "dark" spot it's not very surprising.

[boyter]

When chucking those numbers through the drake equation it looks pretty likely. I think it comes down to a matter of time, both for searching and because I believe we have entered a very dangerous period for a species where technology can either be our savior or cause us to destroy ourselves.

[AlisdairO]

I think your calculated number needs to be multiplied by 100, if I'm not mistaken.

[analyst74]

Also mentioned in the article:

"we’re seeing them with light that left them shortly after the Universe itself formed."

That means, there could be a lot more, but their light has not travelled to earth yet.

[kamaal]

What are the odds of intelligent life NOT existing in such a space?

[wyck]

and if the multiverse ends up being true that number might be slightly larger, and by slightly I mean unimaginably larger, I think it's called infinity.

[EREFUNDO]

I still remember when I learned that the Sun was a star. I was six years old when my uncle told me about it. I actually asked him what the Sun was and his answer pretty much shocked me to the core. I already knew the Earth revolved around the Sun so learning that the Sun is just one of little tiny bright lights at night was a true eye opener. That night I looked up the sky again and wondered if there are other people up there.....

[sliverstorm]

was a star? :)

[Jun8]

Totally unrelated to the universe (but maybe not): To me the "Ye. Gads" moment came after this quote:

"There’s a long jet of material apparently coming from that bloated galaxy on the left (I increased the brightness and contrast of this picture to make it more obvious; it was subtle in the original image but I have a lot of practice picking out things like this)."

I am once again totally stupified at the level of image processing a trained brain paired with a good visual system can do. One day, instead of developing complicated image processing algorithms, we will have it done by a brain-in-a-vat & computer implant combo, using different animal brains and visual systems for different applications, e.g. an owl or eagle for detecting pinpoints of light in a large image of the universe.

[Synthetase]

I'm surprised someone hasn't converted the large image over to something like the Google Maps navigation UI for better viewing. I guess I'll be attempting that when I get home from work.

[dmd]

I would hope that this data would soon be integrated into http://www.google.com/sky/

[jlynn]

Check out http://zoom.it/VGFr

[geuis]

Just had the same idea. Downloading the full image now.

[maaku]

World Wide Telescope:

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/wwt/

[jrockway]

"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," is beginning to sound a lot more plausible.

How could there not be a few Death Stars inhabited by English-speaking humans somewhere in one of those galaxies?

[losvedir]

> How could there not be a few Death Stars inhabited by English-speaking humans somewhere in one of those galaxies?

I know this is just a tongue in cheek comment, but I actually thought it somewhat reasonable until recently when I spent a moment with the numbers and saw its impossibility.

Basically, there's only ~100 billion galaxies with ~100 billion stars each (to an approximation of several orders of magnitude...), while the space of possible societies, languages, histories, etc, grows exponentially.

Even if there were 10^100 stars, log_2(10^100) is still only about 330. This means all those stars can only accomodate 330 forks in history where it could have gone one way or the other with equal probability. Or, in computer science terminology, all those stars can only encode 330 bits of information. And describing English alone takes far, far more than 330 bits. (Depending on how inevitable language of a certain type is.)

[paraschopra]

What I find interesting about this question is that it is at once fascinating and silly. Fascinating because it would be incredibly cool to have someone like us somewhere out there. Silly because the distances involved are mind boggling, so it is highly unlikely they would ever be able to contact us.

So is there any real difference between they not existing at all and they existing and we (probably) never been able to know that they exist? All we can hope is to hopelessly theorize and write science fiction stories about them.

[asmithmd1]

The tip of your little finger held at arms length would about cover this image.

[InclinedPlane]

Interestingly we don't actually know how big our Universe is, perhaps even within a great many orders of magnitude. This is because the visible Universe has expanded at sub-light speeds over its history, but in the very, very early Universe there was a period called inflation in which space-time expanded at speeds much faster than light.

[kamaal]

>>very early Universe there was a period called inflation in which space-time expanded at speeds much faster than light.

References for this?

[jlynn]

Looks like the image has been added to zoom.it. You can browse the full resolution image without downloading all of it: http://zoom.it/VGFr

[zrgiu_]

How can you NOT want to travel the universe when you see such a wonderful photo ? Imagine going closer and closer to a perfectly spiral shaped galaxy, effectively discovering a new world, all-so-different yet similar to ours... I get goosebumps just thinking about this..

I know I'm very probably not gonna get to leave Earth in my lifetime, but I genuinely hope that my children or grandchildren will. This opens so many possibilities...

[jeremyarussell]

With all this out there it leaves one to wonder, when will the aliens finally get here?

But really, if we evolved from chaos and minerals (so far that's the best explanation anyone's given me.) Then somewhere on some of these other planets are sentient creatures looking up going, "I wonder if there are other sentient creatures out there?"

[swalkergibson]

No doubt! It is exceedingly egotistical to think that we are the only life-forms in this vast expanse.

Also, this image seems like a good use of the iPad 3 retina display...

[andys627]

Ask a scientist: Can you see black hole lens effect in this?

[DanBC]

I love that image. It's very hard for me to begin to comprehend the numbers involved.

See also "animated scale of the Universe" from NASA.

(http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120312.html)

[boyter]

That is pretty impressive. I wish there was something like this that showed travel between two points, say earth and Alpha Centauri, but at lightspeed or faster with a timer in years at the bottom like an odometer. I imagine that would impart a greater sense of scale for myself.

[thechrisj]

this is awesome.

[ajays]

I don't understand one thing: how can they keep the telescope stable and focused so accurately on one spot in the sky, without any jitter? The Earth is rotating at 360 degrees/24 hours, which is about 0.25 degrees per minute. This 17000 pixel image covers 1.2 degrees, which means the light is sweeping across this sensor at 60 pixels/second as the earth spins.

How can they move the telescope so accurately that a sensor pixel picks up light from the exact same spot in the sky for an extended duration of time?

[analyst74]

I think you just answered that, right before asking it.

[losvedir]

To put this image in further perspective, take a look at this link[1]. It blew my mind as I had the universe and observable universe all mixed up conceptually. For instance, the universe was not a point at the big bang: only the observable universe was.

[1] http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/infpoint.html

[BCM43]

Torrent of the large jpg file: http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/7134685/The_universe_(JPG)

[tuacker]

If you want a more interactive look at the universe go here http://htwins.net/scale/ (Flash but so so worth it)

[grn]

You may also look at an alternative version at http://htwins.net/scale2/

[squarecat]

Composite of the ESO image with Blue Marble 2012: http://flic.kr/p/btoRfL

[sethbannon]

The world needs more images like this to inspire the scientists and adventurers of tomorrow.