This is what the universe looks like in a single image
"We are an impossibility in an impossible universe."
Space is big. Really big. But its inconceivable scale has been humbled (to an extent) by the creative work of one Pablo Carlos Budassi.
The Argentinian artist has managed to portray the entire known universe in a single massive illustration, built using images provided by NASA telescopes and positional logarithms. And no, it's obviously not to scale.
In the centre of the image is our own solar system, followed by the Kuiper belt, Oort cloud, Alpha Centauri star, Perseus Arm, Milky Way galaxy, Andromeda galaxy, other nearby galaxies. That spangley red stuff (we're sure that's a technical term) around the edge of the circle is invisible plasma produced by the Big Bang.
The logarithms used by Budassi were constructed by Princeton University researchers, allowing the artist to position the known elements of the universe in the right order.
Yes, of course there are a lot of details 'missing', due to the scale of Budassi's project - but it's an admirable achievement that succeeds in giving perspective of just how tiny we are amidst the vast scale of the universe.
And no, there isn't a panda hiding in it, so stop looking.
(Images: NASA, Pablo Carlos Budassi)
