New Scrollable Map of the Universe Reminds Us How Tiny We Really Are - CNET

One negligible, barely visible dot on this graph represents our entire Milky Way galaxy -- a realm with billions of stars besides our own sun, and one we occupy such a small percentage of I don't even want to attempt writing it out. .

"This map, representing galaxies just as little dots, allows the viewer to basically understand different scales at the same time," Ménard said in an overview of the interactive mechanism.

"Seeing the vastness of the universe -- it's quite inspiring.".

Scrolling around the 200,000 galaxies in the map -- placed in accurate, relative positions to one another -- is calming because it reframes how inconsequential the footprint we place in the universe is.

Though if you're blown away by the deceptively concise magnitude of Ménard's map, consider how it doesn't even account for every galaxy in the universe.

Our goal here is to show everybody what the universe really looks like.".

Once you click "explore the map" under the Milky Way galaxy label, you arrive at a screen prompting you to "scroll up to travel through the universe." That such a sentence even exists underscores just how far technology has come.

"From this speck at the bottom," Ménard said, "we are able to map out galaxies across the entire universe, and that says something about the power of science." .

Further back 9 billion years, the map exhibits vivid blue spots to represent quasars rather than galaxies

Basically, it's really hard to see galaxies from this era of cosmic history, reddened to the point of near-invisibility, but quasars are bright enough to act like flashlights

Constructed with an army of high-tech infrared sensors, it's working on detecting galaxies from near the beginning of time stuck in a limbo we cannot see with our minds or machines

"The light travel time to us is greater than the age of the universe."