But musician Pablo Carlos Budassi managed to do it by combining logarithmic maps of the universe from Princeton and images from NASA. He created the image below that shows the observable universe in one disc.
Our sun and solar system are at the very center of the image, followed by the outer ring of our Milky Way galaxy, the Perseus arm of the Milky Way, a ring of other nearby galaxies like Andromeda, the rest of the cosmic web,cosmic microwave background radiation leftover from the big bang, and finally a ring of plasma also generated by the big bang:
Logarithms help us make sense of huge numbers, and in this case, huge distances. Rather than showing all parts of the universe on a linear scale, each chunk of the circle represents a field of view several orders of magnitude larger than the one before it. That’s why the entire observable universe can fit inside the circle.
Budassi got the idea after making hexaflexagons for his son’s birthday one year. (If you haven’t seen a hexaflexagon in action, get ready to have your mind blown.)
“Then when I was drawing hexaflexagons for my sons birthday souvenirs I started drawing central views of the cosmos and the solar system,” Budassi told Tech Insider in an email. “That day the idea of a logarithmic view came and in the next days I was able to [assemble] it with photoshop using images from NASA and some textures created by my own.”
He released the image into public domain, and has created a few other log scales, too.
Sean Palmer
January 4, 2016 at 4:54 pmI love how it turned out to be in a Fibonacci Sprial
Dave Masefield
January 5, 2016 at 5:02 pmWe aren’t centre of the universe though… so this is way out if you ask me…
Delima05
January 5, 2016 at 5:52 pmthe image looks more accurate if it was titled “what our galaxy” looks like
we shouldn’t be able to see earth Saturn the sun in a universe picture lol
Dave Masefield
January 5, 2016 at 6:03 pmeven then it’s no where near accurate as we’re about half way between the centre and the edge of our galaxy lol
Delima05
January 5, 2016 at 11:21 pmYeah no kidding
Jessica Creel
January 5, 2016 at 9:45 pmIt’s a logarithmic scale,more distant objects are exponentially smaller in this image, it’s why you get the coronal effect around the edge. Personally I think it’s an intelligent and beautiful way to render it.
Delima05
January 5, 2016 at 11:21 pmhmm ya that was helpful, still seems misleading to someone a bit under educated
Ceroy Mulder
January 6, 2016 at 6:32 amWell, a theory suggests that since the universe is shapeless, limiteless and thus has no true boundary; everything is ‘the centre of the universe’ in a relative sense.
Plus: we(humans and our corner of perception) have been no where else than the solar system; so I believe this is absolutely nót off. Certainly for all of our understanding in this segment of time.
All of ‘the universe’ we know is which we see: The ‘observable universe’.
More light hasn’t traveled here yet, so the leftovers of the big bang as boundary of ‘the whole’ is also correct in my opinion as well.
Nrsd Hembram
January 6, 2016 at 2:10 amIt looks like a cell.
Shifu R. Careaga
January 6, 2016 at 1:42 pmIs no one going to say “thank you” and just say “wow, it’s cool it looks like an eye”?
People these days…