Across the Universe

This photo, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, shows a small portion of the Tarantula Nebula; a region of ionised gas surrounding a collection of newly formed stars. Located approximately 1700 light years from Earth, it is a satellite of our Milky Way galaxy.

NASA said this region of space is a “firestorm of raw stellar creation, triggered perhaps by a nearby supernova”.

“The image reveals dramatic ridges and valleys of dust, serpent-headed “pillars of creation,” and gaseous filaments glowing fiercely under torrential ultraviolet radiation. The region is on the edge of a dark molecular cloud that is an incubator for the birth of new stars”, said NASA.

NASA believes that regions like this one are “the primitive building blocks of larger galaxies”.

Sometimes when I’m having a bit of a storm in a teacup moment I like to look at pictures like this. It reminds me that I am not the centre of everything. In the grand scheme of things my little life isn’t even a blip on the radar of the universe. Therefore my problems only matter, if I want them to.

Whenever I think of space I’m awestruck by its magnitude. Last year I went to France for a year, and travelled around Europe in the summer. For the first time I got an idea about just how big our planet is, nevermind the whole universe.

The possibilities are endless.