A light year, in general, refers to a year of journey. Its speed is faster than sound, and thus you see light first before hearing the thunderstorm’s sound. It has a speed limit of 299792458 meters per second. Within the blink of an eye, the light has revolved the Earth seven times. This concept explains how fast the light is.

Now, all of you bring your cursor to the lower left of your computer’s screen and start clicking on a “Start” button, followed by “All Program”, browse through “Accessories” and search for “calculator”, then start calculating. The year is 31.536 million seconds, and each second the light travels at 299792458m; the product of these two figures give you an answer of 9454254955488000 meters, which is equivalent to approximately 10 trillion kilometers.

Basically, scientists believe that from the birth of the universe until now, 150 million years have passed. Therefore, the broadest space’s diameter in the universe that we can observe may have existed within the extent of 15 billion light years. The light originates from a place of 15-billion-light-years. What we see from our planet is actually the light that had passed through the universe for 150 million years. This is a consequence of the birth of the universe.

When we see the stars that have existed billions of light years away from the Earth, they are in fact the stars that have already existed in the universe billions of years ago. In other words, the stars we see emerging over the sky are those with a past appearance of a billion-light-years. What will the stars look like now? To see its present appearance, we have to wait for the passing of other billions of light years.

1 Billion Light-Years

The picture shows us the image of the universe observed in a time frame of billions of light years. Each dot represents a miraculous event that may occur in an unpredictable manner in our universe. The space seems as empty as this, which is a normal scene, and with a tenfold large view the space would show no new structure and thus the universe is almost uniform in such a dimension.

100 Million Light-Years

Now, we narrow the view of the universe ten times and examine by looking through the distant place in the Milky Way whether the clotted dusts that we observed in the previous picture are stars or not. At this stage, they may appear to us as stars but are they really stars in reality?

10 Million Light-Years

Again, we narrow the view of the universe ten times. We observe that each clotted dust is a single bright spot with each of them forming up a cosmic region. At this stage, each of them looks like a litter bright star. Also, its mutual gravity binds each of them into galaxies.

1 Million Light-Years

Now, we look at this image closer and closer. These “stars” appear so familiar to us that it is a galaxy that we learnt in the book of astronomy. The galaxy appears in its spiral structure. It is said to travel in space with two satellite galaxies, the irregular little Clouds of Magellan.

100 Thousand Light-Years

This image clearly shows the Milky Way. Within a time frame of 100 thousand light-years, we can see the entire galaxy clearly. The gravity encircle the central region is a mutually bounded hundred billions stars. The external galaxies skin scattered throughout space as far as our eyes could hardly catch. As they drift, they rotate gradually in a slow pace.
The diameter of the galaxy is 100 thousand light-years. If one has the ability to invent a spacecraft that has a speed as fast as the light, it will take him 100 thousand light-years to venture through this huge galaxy. However, this situation is impossible for a human to achieve as his life span can only attain as high as 200 years old.

10 Thousand Light-Years

While lying down on the grassland in Mongolia, one can see a clear galaxy particularly during the night of summer time. The galaxy appears in a dim light flashing through a pitch-dark night sky. From this point, we may estimate our position. If we assume the galaxy as huge as a flat plate, each of us is a small dot filling up the flat surface of the plate. If not, we will be hung above and below the galaxy and our sky may appear half-dark and half-bright but not the galaxy we are observing, which is relatively distributed in the space.

In this image, we can hardly see the existence of the sun. In fact, it is located in the centre of the image, near the border of one spiral arm. The slow-changing spiral patterns of the Galaxy disk are marked by clouds of stars, patches of darkening dust and glowing gas.

1 Thousand Light-Years

At this stage, all dots are cramped and clogged together. We no longer see any clear objects here. Though there may have other stars as well, but they appear too faint for our eyes to capture.

100 Light-Years

In the central sits our sun. It is too faint to look at the sun with lots distinct stars distributed around it. Within this time frame, the star called Arcturus, which lies in the northern sky of earth, shines brightly.

10 Light-Years

At this point, we still see many stars scattering unevenly in the space. This scene is no different from the night sky that we view from the Earth.

1 Light-Year

Here we clearly see one bright star in the center of this image. It appears brighter than the rest as it is located much nearer within this time frame. This bright star is the sun. When we shift away from the sun, it may appear as one star among many stars in the universe.

1 Trillion Kilometers

Only the sun can be seen here, that is located in the central of the image. At this point in the universe, here the cloud of icy comets orbit slowly, which appears invisible in the weak sunlight.

100 Billion Kilometers

Now, we can see the middle dot clearly appearing as a solar system. The planets take on their Copernican aspect to move around the sun on these nested ellipses, marked by colored lines.

10 Billion Kilometers

This image strongly confirms our assumption that the dot is indeed a solar system, accommodating planets like Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter and their many satellites as well. The inner planets run in between the Jupiter’s path and the sun. All planets here circulate counterclockwise.

1 Billion Kilometers

The inner planets include Mars, Earth, Venus, Mercury are enclosed in the path of massive Jupiter. Nevertheless, other objects appear too small and faint to see. In the belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, there are asteroids and meteors.

100 Million Kilometers

This image shows us the inner solar system. The green arc is traversed by the Earth six weeks each September and October.

10 Million Kilometers

This scene shows the Earth’s way remaining four days in October. At all times, the moon lies somewhere on the small ellipse that moves together with the Earth in its orbit.

1 Million Kilometers

What can we see? We see our nearest celestial neighbor, the moon located a good distance away from us.

100 Thousand Kilometers

Oh, our sweet home, the Earth is clearly seen in the image. We learn to know our Earth from images captured by a spacecraft in orbit, through a telescope and on an Atlas. The Earth appears as an isolated image in the centre.

10 Thousand Kilometers

Now, the earth is more detail for us to look at. It is characterized by its white clouds, dark seas, and brown lands. It is also a spherical globe that is always running eastward.

1 Thousand Kilometers

The focus region in a square box holds the property of the whole Lake Michigan, which is believed to form by the continental glaciers in a few times of thousands of years ago in the past.

100 Kilometers

This mapping shows a metropolitan area of Chicago, to where the Lake Michigan is located in the United States.

10 Kilometers

Now, the image captured the heart of the city clearly. We can see some vague buildings, homes and workplaces for a million people here. The shape of harbor and port is clearly captured too.

1 Kilometer

Look at the view closely; you will see some familiar social landscapes and symbols. They are the familiar scene within the city includes a lake, a field, a dock, a museum and etc.

100 Meters

At this stage, you may wonder what is on the field. You may also see some cars running along the road left to the field, while on its right are some boats parking along the edge of the dock.

10 Meters

The object we saw on the field just now becomes more obvious for us to recognize now. It is actually a man and a woman who are having a picnic in the park.

1 Meter

Now, we can see a man is asleep on a warm soft mattress. We will focus on viewing the hand to find out what is the universe in the hand looks like.

0.1 Meter

This image shows the appearance of the back of his hand. This is also a scale the human’s hand can grasp, with things like a keyboard, a mobile phone, and etc.

1 Centimeter

This image shows fine wrinkles found on the hand. With a closer examination on it, we come to realize this is a distinct view of the human skin’s structure and pattern. Next, we are going to step into the microscopic world dwells inside the hand.

0.1 Centimeter

Now, the world of the microscopic appears vividly to our eyes. In the middle of the image, we can see a cross sign. This structure of image lies beneath the skin of a human that is within a cell passing along tiny blood vessel. These are pores of the hand, but where is the hair? The hair seems like it’s disappearing from the pores. Miraculous isn’t it?

0.1 Millimeter

This image appears to be an unexpected scene. We can hardly recognize what the structure is. We are now entering an unusual and unfamiliar world of a human’s tiny structure. It is vaguely seemed as the organizational structure of the skin.

10 Micron Meters

In general, a cell is scaled at 10-micron. And we know that the world’s largest cell is the egg of an ostrich. It is an egg cell divided into several magnitudes of decimeter level. Now, we reach a stage in the living skin’s cell, where the blood passes through. Most blood cells are tiny, incomplete, short-lived disks that give red blood its color. This white cell plays a major role in the complex cellular and chemical reaction called the immune system, the body’s defense mechanism against infection.

1 Micron meter

This is a protective membrane within the cell that encloses its nucleus. The minute pores allow minerals from within to enter the larger volume of the cell. Every complete cell in a human’s body has such a nucleus. It is said that human’s body has hundred times more cells than the stars in the Galaxy.

0.1 Micron Meter

Looking at this high-spiral structure substance, undoubtedly, it is a chromosome that we learnt from the Science’s book. There are 23 pairs of such chromosomes in a human’s body. It is such long molecules carrying a code of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), folding within a tiny space of the chromosome. One such thread of DNA is measured as a few centimeters in length.

100 Angstroms

This is a unit of the length in the range of 10th to 8th square meters. Knowing the equidistance rules of the double helix structure scientifically, we come to aware that this material is a DNA.

10 Angstroms

The materials are seen as molecular blocks which carry the generic message. Within this nanoscale, we can accurately calculate the number of atoms within a cell. Every cell portrayed in this manner gives lots of information, particularly dealing with its attribute, characteristic and nature.

1 Angstrom

An atom constitutes an atomic nuclei and its electronic component. This is a cloud of electrical charge that we can observe from this image. The electrical charge is seen as more concentrated to the exterior of the atomic nuclei.

0.1 Angstroms

The image shows the dense cloud of electrical charges outside the atomic nuclei. Now, we seem to head back to the endless universe. Every atom is just like a small universe that forms up a huge endless universe. Now, we are among the two innermost electrons of the carbon atom. The four outer electrons of carbon can come and go, whether in flame, in diamond, or in DNA. However, its inner electrons remain unchanged to ordinary experiment, as it can only respond within the nucleus itself.

1 Picometer

After crossing through the dense layer of the cloud of electrical charges, we venture into the world which looks clean from any impurities and dusts. The middle one is the atomic nucleus.

0.1 Picometer

While approaching towards the middle point, we now see a nucleus that legendary documented in most of the Science’s books. Its unit ranges from 10th to 12th square meter or called a Picometer. Within this scale, an atomic nucleus appears in many spherical balls that bound themselves to each other. They carry both positively charged protons and non- charged neutrons.

10-m

This is a typical feature of nuclei.

1-m

This is the inner structure of a proton, and it may be a neutron. It has an unknown feature to identify, and again it is unnoticeable.

0.1-m

Again, this image appears unclear for us to interpret. What will we see, and what is likely happened in the next level? Nobody knows, and even the scientist can hardly answer this question. Perhaps, only the Lord knows what is inside the next structure after this scale? It remains a mystery in the realm of Modern Science.