I want to share my favorite picture in the world with you guys

[Plankter]

This is the Ultra Deep Field image taken by the Hubble telescope:

You may have seen it before, it's a popular image. Unless you have, let me introduce you to my favorite picture ever.
Everything you see in the picture besides the 3 or 4 bright spots (which are stars) are galaxies (there are about 10000). The Hubble telescope gathered data for a total of 11.3 days to compose this stunning shot of our universe. It is thought that the oldest galaxies in the picture could be 13 billion years old. That's a distance of ~1.2*10^26 kilometers (13 billion light years)! And all this chaotic beauty is only 3.4 arc-minutes (~0.05 degrees) wide diagonally! Sometimes when I feel down, I zoom in and just gaze at the galaxies and remember how insignificant my existence is. I feel overwhelmed by the scale of the universe yet also unwound to realize that no matter how much we try, we will never know everything, we won't even see everything, in fact we won't even know how much of "everything" is left to see. That reminds me that in the grand scheme of things, nothing really matters...

Then literally anything slightly inconvenient happens and I want to cry myself to sleep forever

(sources: spacetelescope.org, Wikipedia (I'm really not an academic person or anything, so I comfortably cite Wikipedia))
(spacetelesope page: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0611b/)
(you should download it in full resolution if you want to take a closer look)

 

[CJM]

That is an incredible picture and really nails down how puny we all are in the grand scheme of things....unless you believe otherwise of course.

 

[TheCrow]

I LOVE stuff like this! Thank you for sharing.

 

[Circles]

I used to marvel at the universe as well until I realized it's something I'll never experience or be a part of albeit very tiny. All that infinite space and all we got to rationalize the vast emptiness is trying to convince ourselves that we're the universe experiencing itself. The glamour of it all just fades after while atleast with me. Plus think about all the life that has lived and will be in the future, so much needless suffering and for no reason at all other than being a random fractal simulation or something. That constant and lingering 'why any of this' still continues to baffle me.

 

[21Neberg]

It's a beautiful picture!! There's no way we're the only walking and talking people in there.

 

[Midnight]

I've seen it a few times long ago .. this image is really awe-inspiring. Every time i see it i ponder for a bit.

 

[Circles]

Also just another thought think about how most of that everything is literally stuck in the past and because of that we are not seeing those stars and galaxies as they are 'now' but as they were in the past. It all feels fake like a mirage tricking us. Like is any of that real or was real? Is it all fake? Makes me uncomfortable knowing that even the universe is manipulating us and hiding its secrets forever.

 

[Armadillo]

I shit you not, this stuff really helps me with depression and anxiety.
Sometimes it really calms me down instantly and reminds me to not take life too seriously, at times I just started laughing 'cause I realized how silly I was to worry so much about things.

I don't remember the exact quote, but Alan Watts once said

"No amount of anxiety has ever made things better"

It may not always be true but that's the story of my life.
90% of the anxiety I've ever felt was totally useless/counterproductive.

 

[Peaceisnear]

So pretty ❤

 

[MeltedJello]

Cool picture

 

[Death is beautiful]

we are just insects on this tiny planet, and our whole life with all its worries is complete nonsense. I hope that after death we will simply sink into oblivion and everything will lose its meaning.