That's the Size of It: Eames Video of the Universe

"Powers of Ten™"

EamesOffice, YouTube (1977) (uploaded August 26, 2010)
video, 9:01

"Powers of Ten takes us on an adventure in magnitudes. Starting at a picnic by the lakeside in Chicago, this famous film transports us to the outer edges of the universe. Every ten seconds we view the starting point from ten times farther out until our own galaxy is visible only...."

The video zooms out from that picnic to the edge of the (known) universe, then back in - and keeps going until the viewer gets up close and personal with part of a proton.

It's a pretty good way to get a feel for just how big - and small - the universe is, and how much detail there is to study at just about every imaginable scale.

Related posts:

• "Higgs Boson, 'God Particle,' and Getting a Grip"
  (December 19, 2011)
• "A Sandbar Made of Galaxies"
  (November 30, 2010)
• "Whacking Great Radiation Bubbles Blown From Milky Way's Center"
  (November 10, 2010)
• "Cosmic Web Spotted: Filaments of Galaxies"
  (November 3, 2009)
• "That's the Size of It: Local Galaxies to Quarks"
  (February 21, 2009)