The bigger picture

It's not often you're completely blown away by a single image.

I remember reading "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking at school.

Which deepened my fascination of the cosmos ever since.

On clear nights, it is difficult not to be drawn to the stars and planets above.

Almost impossible to comprehend the scale of what the naked eye can see.

But it's what the naked eye can't see which is truly mind-boggling.

Imagine standing on a beach during a crystal clear night.

And holding a single grain of sand at arms length into the sky above.

It's circumference contains a single image of the universe.

Which when viewed deeply through the James Webb Telescope.

Brings to light the thousands of galaxies pictured.

Imagine replicating that lens with millions of grains of sand.

And patch-working them across the night sky above.

The scale and beauty of our universe is truly astonishing.

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, has approximately 100 billion stars.

Of which our Sun is a single member.

It is estimated there are at least 800 billion planets in the Milky Way.

And yet, to date, we only know of intelligent life on one planet.

Our miraculous blue sphere.

It took 4 billion years and almost unbelievable good fortune.

For intelligent life to evolve on planet Earth.

And yet the very pinnacle of intelligent life is destroying Earth's natural systems.

At a rate which could yet wipe us all out.

Imagine being fortunate enough to be alive today on that planet.

Armed with the knowledge to encourage and engage in meaningful change.

So future generations would have the chance.

To discover what else is out there in our universe.

Because the more we discover about our minute odds of living here.

The more likely we are to protect this remarkable ecosystem.

Thank you to the 42 additional subscribers to this newsletter. It is great to have all 492 of you on this journey.

Please do like, comment, and continue to share this newsletter far and wide.

All the best from the South West.