In 1990, the Voyager 1 space probe took a picture of Earth from 6 Billion kilometers. In the photo, it's barely perceptible. It exists only as a tiny blue speck. This image inspired Carl Sagan to write the book, "The Pale Blue Dot," which represents how small and insignificant humans are in comparison to the cosmos.
Since then, NASA satellites and telescopes have taken thousands of images. Many of these images represent how small we are in comparison to the vastness of space. So, if you want to put things in perspective, read on for ten more images that make you feel small.
Photography: NASA, Voyager
At the end of a star's lifecycle, a supernova explosion occurs and the light from that explosion is blasted out into space. This star is so far away, it's estimated this explosion took place 11,000 years before that light reached us.
Photography: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; D. Milisavljevic (Purdue University), T. Temim (Princeton University), I. De Looze (University of Gent)
This image was taken from the Orion spacecraft en route to the Moon just an hour after launch. To give you a perspective of its distance from Earth, the solar array wing in the foreground of this image is just 7 meters long. From a slightly different angle, that wing could block the entire view of Earth at that distance.
Photography: NASA, Artemis I
This is not a photo of one galaxy, but many. All of these yellow splotches of light are individual galaxies approximately 62 million lightyears away. These galaxies exist in a cluster called the Fornax Cluster, which just goes to show how small our one Milky Way galaxy is compared to the vastness of space.
Photography: Marcelo Rivera
This wispy cloud formation exists on the edge of the Cepheus constellation, about 1,200 light years away. That's only about 1% of the length of the Milky Way galaxy. The Nebula itself is more than two light-years across, which gives you a picture of just how big our galaxy is.
Photography: Bogdan Jarzyna
This image contains not one, but two galaxies. The bridge of dust and gas you see connecting the two galaxies is about 75,000 lightyears long. The bridge exists because both galaxies are being pulled towards each other by gravity. Both galaxies will eventually merge into one.
Photography: NASA, ESA, Hubble; Processing: Harshwardhan Pathak
Images of space have been taken for over 100 years, and this is one of the first. This low-resolution glass discovery plate captured a small variation, that we now know is the Andromeda galaxy.
When he compared it with other glass plates, Edwin Hubble noticed that it wasn't always there, which indicated that the galaxy was very far away. It is the first evidence we have of a multi-galaxy universe.
Photography: Carnegie Institution for Science
This circular cluster of stars shines so bright that it was noticed by astronomer Edmond Halley in 1716. According to his writings, "This is but a little Patch, but it shows itself to the naked eye when the Sky is serene and the Moon absent."
At 25,000 lightyears away, this is one of the brightest globular star clusters in the northern sky. That means that whenever we see them in the night sky, we're looking at stars from 25,000 years ago.
Photography: Serge Brunier, Jean-François Bax, David Vernet OCA/C2PU
The ghostly orb surrounded by a ring is Neptune, the farthest planet from the sun in our solar system. It takes 165 years to complete its orbit and is 30 times farther away from the sun than Earth.
It's also four times wider than Earth. That's the difference between a nickel and a baseball.
Photography: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, NIRCam
A lot is going on in this vast expanse of space. We see two nebulae, the largest of which is hundreds of lightyears across.
Deep space photos of this nebula indicate that it's home to baby stars. It takes millions of years for a baby star to become a main sequence star, like the sun.
Photography: Yann Sainty
The glimmering nebula pictured here is called the Prawn Nebula. It exists in our Milky Way galaxy some 6,000 lightyears away.
Nebulas like this last a few million years, forming new stars until the most massive ones ionize all of the gas.
Photography: Daniel Stern