The Universe Is Much Bigger Than You Think

Earth floats in the universe, and calling it a speck of dust isn't an exaggeration. The universe is so massive that it goes far beyond what we can imagine. And to better understand how small we really are, this video will take you from Earth to the deepest parts of space, to uncover hidden secrets and incredible mysteries. Our first stop is the Moon, the only natural satellite of Earth, and the only place beyond our planet where humans have ever been. Its surface is covered with craters everywhere. Next, we go to Mars, a silent and dry desert. Today, several rovers like China's Zhurong have already explored its surface. Then we pass through the asteroid belt, a region packed with more than 500,000 small bodies. We reach Jupiter's domain, a planet 1321 times bigger than Earth, the largest in the solar system. It has a massive storm so large it could swallow Earth, the Great Red Spot. Saturn comes next with its iconic rings, made of billions of small chunks of ice, each like a tiny moon. Then we see Uranus and Neptune, ice giants at the edges of the solar system. Beyond them lies the famous Kuiper belt. So far, only five human-made spacecraft like Voyager have reached this region, where Pluto is also located. In 1950, a Dutch astronomer named Jan Oort proposed a bold idea that the solar system is surrounded by a huge spherical cloud, the so-called Oort cloud. It would be made up of billions of sleeping comets and span about two light-years across. But because it's so far away, we haven't seen it yet, and maybe never will. As we go beyond the Oort cloud, we begin to see countless glowing dots. Each one is a star. Together, they form the Milky Way. Our galaxy is a common spiral type, like a glowing island in space. Long arms stretch across it, and Earth is located in one of them. The Orion arm, about 26,000 light-years from the bright centre. Moving beyond the Milky Way, we find a group of about 50 galaxies, the so-called local group. This region spans about 100,000 light-years. Further out is the Virgo supercluster, at least 100,000 light-years wide, made up of around 2,000 galaxies. In this giant system, the Milky Way is just a tiny point. But even the Virgo supercluster is only a small part of something bigger, the Laniakea supercluster, a cosmic giant with around 100,000 galaxies, and a size of 52,000 light-years across. Above all, that the universe is shaped by a massive web, giant threads of matter spread across space, forming what we call the observable universe. In March 2013, data from the Planck telescope by the European Space Agency revealed that the universe is 138,000 years old. Since it keeps expanding, the observable universe from Earth has a radius of 46,000 light-years, the farthest we can possibly see. But what lies beyond that, no one knows. And after seeing all this, a deep question arises. As an old saying goes, we drift between heaven and earth, like a grain lost in the sea. We are just grains of sand in the universe. Compared to this massive scale, everything humanity has done seems almost meaningless. So why do we still worry so much about fame, money, and power?