The Milky Way Galaxy & Me

This is an infrared mosaic picture of the center of the Milky Way Galaxy (that's our galaxy) taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. If you click HERE for a link to a NASA article about the pic (and HERE for a truly amazing 30mb version of the pic). From the article:

The region pictured here is immense, with a horizontal span of 890 light-years and a vertical span of 640 light-years. Earth is located 26,000 light-years away, out in one of the Milky Way's spiral arms. Though most of the objects seen in this image are located at the galactic center, the features above and below the galactic plane tend to lie closer to Earth.

I look at a picture like that and just feel such a sense of awe. The scale is brain-freezingly massive. I wonder how anyone can look at it and still think we're alone in the universe. There are billions of stars in that galaxy (our galaxy need I remind you again) which is only one of billions of galaxies in the universe. The Milky Way is, effectively, only the local neighbourhood of humanity. It's ludicrous to think we're the only life, let alone intelligent life, in all that enormity.

I look at that picture and know I was born at the wrong time. Ever since I can remember I've had this pervasive feeling that there had been a mistake, that I wasn't meant to be born for another thousand years. The future is where I want to be now. Pictures like this and the feeling of displacement I've always had are why I read so much science fiction. All those imagined futures feel like home to me.