The Universe Is Huge And We Are Small

 Size Comparison Of Astronomical Objects

Top row: Uranus and Neptune; second row: Earth, the white dwarf Sirius B, Venus; bottom row (reproduced and enlarged in lower image)—above: Mars and Mercury; below: the Moon, dwarf planets Pluto and Haumea

Mars (back left), Mercury (back right), Moon (front left), Pluto (front center), and Haumea (front right), to scale.

Planets of the Solar System (Sizes to scale; distances and illumination not to scale)

The inner planets. From left to right: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars in true-color. (Sizes to scale; distances not to scale)

The gas giants against the Sun's limb, at 1 px = 1 Mm The diameters are to scale. The limb of the Sun is in the background. From left to right, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

The Location of the Earth in the Solar System

The Location of the Solar System in the Milky Way Galaxy

Artist's conception of the spiral structure of the Milky Way with two major stellar arms and a bar

This detailed annotated artist’s impression shows the structure of the Milky Way, including the location of the spiral arms and other components such as the bulge. This version of the image has been updated to include the most recent mapping of the shape of the central bulge deduced from survey data from ESO’s VISTA telescope at the Paranal Observatory.

Image of the night sky above Paranal on 21 July 2007, taken by ESO astronomer Yuri Beletsky. A wide band of stars and dust clouds, spanning more than 100 degrees on the sky, is seen. This is the Milky Way, the Galaxy we belong to. At the centre of the image, two bright objects are visible. The brightest is the planet Jupiter, while the other is the star Antares.