SkyePuppy wows us with a pictorial post

Frequent visitor SkyePuppy has posted a series of pictures that show us how small we really are. The first photo makes us feel good to see how much bigger Earth is when compared to Mars, Venus and Mercury and "li'l" Pluto. We are then compared to the big boys of the solar system: Jupiter, Saturn, etc. While we are admiring the size of Jupiter, we are treated to a comparison of such planets to our sun. The amazement is only beginning as we then see that our sun looks like a marble next to a beach ball when compared to the star Arcturus. Finally, as all confidence of comprehension of size leaves our minds (actual comprehension probably left with the next continent on Earth) Arcturus is pictured as a pea compared to the hot air balloon of the star Antares.

While our minds begin to disintegrate as we ponder such magnitude, our friend Chris Malott throws in some more info from another website that states:

"In the constellation of Hercules, there is a star which could contain 100 million of Antares. The largest known star, Epsilon, could easily swallow up several million stars the size of the one in Hercules!"

As our technology has allowed us to see the great magnitudes of size in the universe, I believe it has only begun to scratch the surface when it comes to the incredible smallness of the microscopic universe. We have discovered molecules, atoms and parts of atoms. I believe there are more discoveries in the microscopic to come. We have the added bonus of seeing the microscopic mimicking the giants in their "solar system-like" structure. Just wait until we see the micro version of a black hole. (You read it here first)

When I ponder all of this I realize that man is not only small in size, but man is small in knowledge. Is it an accident that at the time when man achieves the technological advancement to begin to see the secrets of the universe that at the same time he sees how small he and his home earth really is? Is it blind chance that at a time that the collective knowledge of man has grown exponentially in a 100 year sliver of their existence that our realization of what we still have no answers for has grown just as exponentially?

I could launch into a religious direction here, but I will leave those thought to the choice of the reader. I could launch into a diatribe of how little science knows yet boasts enough knowledge to make demands on our lives and economies. Instead, I will simply point out that in the light of such greatness how much of an understatement it is to reflect on how small we really are.