A fraction of a pale blue dot

Many years ago, Carl Sagan provided a remarkable commentary on an image of our planet taken from a distance by a probe we sent out.

We now have an even clearer image of our planet

What this image depicts is the scale of the universe in which we live.

We live on a gigantic planet, which we can cross in about twelve hours, given our best technology.

This gigantic planet is a fraction of our local cosmological system; this cosmological system is a fraction of the Milky Way galaxy.  The Milky Way galaxy is a fraction of a larger area that contains millions of galaxies - which is a fraction of an even larger area - which is a fraction of a fraction of our universe.

To describe our place in the universe as a "pale blue dot" is erroneous and anthropocentric.  On a human scale, to describe our place as a "sub-atomic particle within quark within an electron within an atom" would be generous.  Our language provides us with a means to communicate the concept of many "withins" - but our minds lack the capacity to truly comprehend the physical scale of what we describe.

We are an infinitesimally small fraction of a fraction of a pale blue dot.

Assuming there is a personal god that is overseeing this great system - we are a digit far to the right of the period in its calculations.

And this is not bleak, nor fatalistic, nor damning, nor depressing.  It means that upon this fraction of a fraction of a pale blue dot, it is we who define our fate.