Astronomy: Hubble Deep Field
Implications of the Hubble Deep Field image.
"The HUDF field contains an estimated 10,000 galaxies. In ground-based images, the patch of sky in which the galaxies reside (just one-tenth the diameter of the full Moon) is largely empty."
Remember that every speck of the darkness in the night sky likely contains thousands of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars you can't see. There are over 200 billion stars in our galaxy alone; If each star has a solar system, then how many planets could there be in a speck of the night sky - trillions?
Using this example from Hubble: 10,000 galaxies * 200,000,000,000 stars per galaxy * 8 planets per star = very roughly 16,000,000,000,000,000 (~16 quadrillion) planets in a tenth of the diameter of the full moon (with the arrogant assumption that they are all like us) All in a speck of dark sky.
In the whole sky there may be 16,000,000,000,000,000 planets * 12,700,000 times the area = very very roughly 203,200,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets in our universe.
Unbelievable. Nothing is as it seems.
When you are staring up at the sky on a cloudless summer night by your tent, with waves lapping peacefully at the shore and crickets chirping, remember how absolutely incredible it is that tiny electromagnetic control mechanisms in one type of organism on one planet in one galaxy are beginning to grasp the breadth of the universe itself.