this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] SugarCatDestroyer@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

Some little pebble thought too much of itself.

[–] enbiousenvy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 16 hours ago

actually I don't care. I don't have to be the star of the show, I just want to be happy and I'm hot enough to be my own star (or sun to be specific).

[–] jsomae@lemmy.ml 1 points 12 hours ago

bigger than I thought, tbh.

[–] aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

The sun is actually pretty small. Do a comparison between the sun and some of the bigger stars, then we'll see just how insignificant we really are.

[–] jsomae@lemmy.ml 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

why does the existence of larger things have any bearing on our significance?

[–] Noodle07@lemmy.world 0 points 9 hours ago

Are we talking about peepee size here ?

[–] sirico@feddit.uk 3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)
[–] MehBlah@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago

ACK ACK ACK!

[–] Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca 2 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

Years ago I was on 2C-B and lounging about in my brother's room, staring at a big glowing plastic moon I had bought for him as a joke, when somehow the word and concept of it sent me spiraling down a rabbit hole of cosmic realization. At first the moon (or perhaps my thoughts surrounding the moon) began to rotate like a planetary body, becoming a parent star in a galactic arm, and eventually the central mass of a galaxy itself, ever turning with long tendril arms orbiting around its perimeter.

As the question of it grew, it became the universe itself, on a profoundly metaphysical level, and I came to the realization that every single living organism, both here and elsewhere in the cosmos, are not so much a part or some greater plan or design, but are instead just individual cells and appendages of recently awakened universe. One that has blinked its eyes from a deep sleep and has slowly become self-aware. And just as a child born blind will at some point use their hands and discover they have a body for the first time, we are tiny (but not insignificant) appendages of that universe discovering and exploring itself, trying to make sense or what it even is.

I found immense comfort in the idea that there is no greater meaning to everything than that. We're just a part of something bigger that is at this very moment trying to make sense of itself, and I don't need more than that.

[–] TheRealLinga@sh.itjust.works 2 points 16 hours ago

The 2C family is quite something. I love this thought though, I mean why the hell not

[–] SSUPII@sopuli.xyz 5 points 21 hours ago

I am the result of 14 billion years of cosmic evolution.

I am a thermodynamic miracle.

I am the waking universe looking back at itself.

[–] mo_lave@reddthat.com 25 points 1 day ago (2 children)

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

[–] baggins@beehaw.org 1 points 31 minutes ago

Thank you for reminding us of this. We need it more than ever at the moment.

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Beautiful ... thanks for posting this ... Carl Sagan has always been and will always be a great inspiration for me

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[–] Engywuck@lemmy.zip 138 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (12 children)

Wrong. The arrow points to Mars, not to Earth.

[–] FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This meme isn’t directed toward humans.

[–] 0ops@piefed.zip 8 points 1 day ago

Cocky-ass martians smh

[–] SanctimoniousApe 9 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Where's Marvin when you need him?

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[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 36 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So it's a message from the future specifically for Elon Musk.

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[–] ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 day ago

Yeah, that's kinda weird

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[–] Electric_Druid@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

I'm insignificant?

Oh, thank God

[–] pressanykeynow@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago

On Mars? TIL

[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 50 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)
[–] Engywuck@lemmy.zip 31 points 1 day ago

Upvoted for linking Wikipedia and not some shitty YT video.

[–] CMDR_Horn@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You can't get to this star in Elite Dangerous, but you can get to VY Canis Majoris which is 1420 radii

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[–] casmael@mander.xyz 25 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

joke’s on you, I’m zaphod beeblebrox

Joke’s on you, I’m zaphod beeblebrox

[–] LadyButterfly@reddthat.com 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You need to cut back on the pan galactic gargle blasters mate

[–] baggins@beehaw.org 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Zaphod’s just this guy, you know.

[–] LadyButterfly@reddthat.com 5 points 1 day ago

He's a hoopy frood who knows where his towel is

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[–] apotheotic@beehaw.org 2 points 21 hours ago

Yeah but I get to be pretty and kiss girls how much more significant could life be

[–] lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 37 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Ste41th@lemmy.ml 27 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] SanctimoniousApe 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Must be a guy. Probably trying to figure out how to get to Venus.

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[–] millie@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Such a weird mentality. Why would being small make us any less significant than something large? Why would being large make us any more significant than something small? Silly.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)
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[–] IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I sure love living in a burning planet where I have to pay taxes to pedophiles who want to send me to a concentration camp.

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's all relative though. Yes, we're insignificant to the rest of the universe, but...

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[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 day ago (17 children)

Here's the galaxy and our approximate location in this system. To give you an idea of scale .... the galaxy is estimated to be about 100,000 light years across. Meaning that if you could travel at the speed of light (which is impossible), it would still take you 100,000 years to cross the galaxy from edge to edge.

[–] zea_64@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 1 day ago (4 children)

100000 years from an outside perspective, but because of time dilation you could make it take arbitrarily little time from your reference frame.

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[–] WhatGodIsMadeOf@feddit.org 6 points 1 day ago

"Hey that's where you live too cunt."

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