Overview

BBC Sky at Night Magazine

The incomprehensible scale of the universe is intimidating to most people. Forget feeling insignificant or small on Earth as one person out of 8 billion. That’s nowhere near how it feels to realize that when the scope of the universe is concerned, Earth and humanity are much, much less than a rounding error. They might as well be a zero, meaningless when discussing the hundreds of billions of galaxies and their contents. For what is thought to be a spectacular achievement – intelligent life – we are less than worthless.

Except that isn’t true. Yes, there are quintillions of planets out there (1 quintillion = 1 million trillion!), and going off sheer probability, other intelligent life is likely somewhere among those planets. But that isn’t how people judge themselves or others on their good days. When you feel happy and fulfilled, you don’t stop to consider that you are just one of 8 billion and then demean your self-image and emotions for being “meaningless”, because not everything has to be a competition or make you stand out.

The same goes for humanity’s place in the universe. Yes, this planet is one of quintillions, but it’s our planet. In the near-infinite cosmos, we are all here, at this exact point in time. It doesn’t have to be about being important or meaningful among the stars, because living and existing as we are now is more than enough. Because there is only one Earth like ours, and we’re the ones that get to live on it.