Let us travel now at the speed of light,
departing from our home star on a trip across the cosmos toward the edge of the known Universe
Our imaginary journey begins at midnight on January 1st when we prepare to launch into space
at the speed of 186,000 miles/sec
We quickly pass the orbits of Mercury
Venus
And span the 93 million miles that separate the Earth from the Sun in just 8 minutes 19 seconds.
We continue on, passing Mars
Then the gas giant planets Jupiter
Saturn ...
Uranus ...
Neptune ...
Finally after 5 hours and 31 minutes, we race pass Pluto and its companion moon ...
Our journey has taken us more than 3.5 billion miles
to the outer limit of our Solar System and it's still January 1st
Now we alter our flight path and travel in a direction perpendicular to our galaxy
Behind us, the 9 planets and the Sun quickly vanish from sight
The emptiness of space is broken only by the light of stars so distant, they do not yet appear to move
A year passes
then two years
Three
Four years
Finally on April 19th of the 5th year, we reach Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to our Solar System
We have travelled more than 25 trillion miles and our journey has scarcely begun
We are now 10 light-years from the Sun, far enough out in space that the stars within our galaxy appear to converge.
100 light-years from the Sun,
patterns of gas and nebulous material from the arms of the Milky Way fill our view
1000 light-years
The galaxy's arms and discs become more defined
Yet it is not ultil we have travelled at the speed of light for 100,000 years that the entire spiral shape of the Milky Way is recognizable
From here on, each point of light we see is no longer an individual star but an entire galaxy composed of billions of stars
5 million years after beginning our journey,
the Milky Way is seen as part of a cluster of about 30 galaxies known as the Local Group
50 million light-years out, we encounter the large Virgo cluster containing more than 2000 galaxies
and so it goes as our travel continue to take us deeper into the cosmos
We pass cluster after galactic cluster, each a building block of a far greater framework
A billion years passed
5 billion
Finally after 10 billion years we decelerate and pause
to observe the theoretical view of the Universe's large-scale structure
Countless billions of galaxies are now seemed to comprise chains
masses and thread-like structures that stretch across the cosmos
Separated by enormous regions of empty space
It is a spectacular tapestry
So vast and diverse in its design that the power of its creator must truly surpass all human understanding