Galaxies and Grocery Lists: Keeping Life in Perspective

One thing I like about astronomy is the way it puts things like international affairs and grocery lists in perspective.

These photos from the Hubble space telescope might help you put concerns in perspective:

• spiral galaxy M81
• a sky full of galaxies
• more Hubble galaxy images
• still more Hubble images

Now, because I feel like putting it here:

Vastness (excerpt)
Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Many a hearth upon our dark globe sighs after many a vanish'd face,
Many a planet by many a sun may roll with the dust of a vanish'd race.

Raving politics, never at rest—as this poor earth's pale history runs,—
What is it all but a trouble of ants in the gleam of a million million of suns?...

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Related posts, at

• "A Serious Search for Other Worlds, Life, and - Maybe - Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence"