A journey by powers of ten, from the ground where you are to the edge of the observable universe: 16 steps, each showing a view about ten times wider than the one before, and 313 of the best-known things along the way. Every star, planet and galaxy in the atlas comes from a real catalogue. Where the picture is an impression rather than a measurement, the atlas says so; in its panels every value is marked as measured, calculated from measurements, inferred or estimated or not known.

Each name below is a link that opens the atlas at that object.

1. One face of the Earth 10⁷ m, 10 to the power 7 metres across

   10,000 kilometres across. 11 hours by jet at 900 km/h.

   The Earth is 12,742 km across, so its curve now fills the view.

   The journey starts from the ground where you are: the city of your device’s time zone, or any town you choose in Settings.

   Sources: NASA Blue Marble (September) and Black Marble 2016

   What is here

   • Europe: Region, 1,066 km from Greenwich, London.
   • Atlantic Ocean: Sea, 3,680 km from Greenwich, London.
   • Arctic Ocean: Sea, 3,727 km from Greenwich, London.
   • Africa: Region, 5,489 km from Greenwich, London.
   • Asia: Region, 5,940 km from Greenwich, London.
   • North America: Region, 6,841 km from Greenwich, London.
   • South America: Region, 9,380 km from Greenwich, London.

2. Earth 10⁸ m, 10 to the power 8 metres across

   12,742 km across. 14 hours by jet at 900 km/h.

   Every measurement in this atlas was made from here, or from telescopes launched from here.

   Day and night are drawn as they are at this moment, over a cloud-free picture of the surface.

   Sources: NASA Blue Marble (September) and Black Marble 2016 · NASA Earth fact sheet

   What is here

   • Indian Ocean: Sea, 10,501 km from Greenwich, London.
   • Pacific Ocean: Sea, 12,597 km from Greenwich, London.
   • Antarctica: Region, 14,744 km from Greenwich, London.
   • Australia: Region, 15,154 km from Greenwich, London.
   • Earth: Our home, a rocky planet, 12,742 km across, 1.00 AU from the Sun.

3. Earth and Moon 10⁹ m, 10 to the power 9 metres across

   384,400 km apart on average. Moonlight takes 1.3 seconds to reach us.

   About 30 Earths would fit in the gap. The Moon is the farthest place people have stood.

   Both are drawn to true scale.

   Sources: NASA Moon fact sheet · the Moon’s place: ELP-2000/82 lunar theory (Meeus)

   What is here

   • Moon: Earth’s moon, 3,475 km across, 384,400 km from Earth.

4. Inner Solar System 10¹² m, 10 to the power 12 metres across

   Earth orbits 150 million km (1 AU) from the Sun. Sunlight takes 8.3 minutes to reach us.

   Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, each where it really is today and turned as it is now. Their orbits are to scale; the planets themselves are drawn thousands of times larger than life, or they would be far smaller than a pixel. The Sun is enlarged less, to keep clear of Mercury’s orbit: truly it is 109 times Earth’s width.

   Between Mars and Jupiter lies the asteroid belt, with the dwarf planet Ceres.

   Sources: Orbits: JPL approximate Keplerian elements

   What is here

   • Sun: The star at the centre of the Solar System, 1,391,400 km across.
   • Mercury: Rocky planet, 4,879 km across, 0.39 AU from the Sun.
   • Venus: Rocky planet, 12,104 km across, 0.72 AU from the Sun.
   • Bennu: Asteroid, 0.5 km across, on average 1.1 AU from the Sun.
   • Mars: Rocky planet, 6,779 km across, 1.52 AU from the Sun.
   • Phobos: Moon of Mars, 22 km across, 9,376 km from Mars.
   • Deimos: Moon of Mars, 12 km across, 23,463 km from Mars.
   • Vesta: Asteroid, 525 km across, on average 2.4 AU from the Sun.
   • Ceres: Dwarf planet, 939 km across, on average 2.8 AU from the Sun.
   • Main asteroid belt: Small bodies of the Solar System: between Mars and Jupiter.
   • Pallas: Asteroid, 513 km across, on average 2.8 AU from the Sun.
   • Hygiea: Asteroid, 434 km across, on average 3.2 AU from the Sun.
   • Hilda asteroids: Small bodies of the Solar System: a triangle turning with Jupiter.

5. Solar System 10¹³ m, 10 to the power 13 metres across

   Neptune orbits 30 AU out. Sunlight takes 4.2 hours to reach Neptune.

   All eight planets, each at its real place for today, drawn thousands of times larger than life so their faces show. The orbits are to scale.

   Beyond Neptune lies the Kuiper belt of icy bodies, where Pluto orbits.

   Sources: Orbits: JPL approximate Keplerian elements · NASA NSSDC

   What is here

   • 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko: Comet, 4.0 km across, on average 3.5 AU from the Sun.
   • Jupiter trojans (L4): Small bodies of the Solar System: leading Jupiter by 60°.
   • Jupiter trojans (L5): Small bodies of the Solar System: trailing Jupiter by 60°.
   • Callisto: Moon of Jupiter, 4,821 km across, 1,882,709 km from Jupiter.
   • Jupiter: Gas giant, 139,822 km across, 5.20 AU from the Sun.
   • Io: Moon of Jupiter, 3,643 km across, 421,700 km from Jupiter.
   • Europa: Moon of Jupiter, 3,122 km across, 671,034 km from Jupiter.
   • Ganymede: Moon of Jupiter, 5,268 km across, 1,070,412 km from Jupiter.
   • Rhea: Moon of Saturn, 1,528 km across, 527,108 km from Saturn.
   • Enceladus: Moon of Saturn, 504 km across, 237,948 km from Saturn.
   • Mimas: Moon of Saturn, 396 km across, 185,539 km from Saturn.
   • Saturn: Gas giant, 116,464 km across, 9.54 AU from the Sun.
   • Dione: Moon of Saturn, 1,123 km across, 377,396 km from Saturn.
   • Tethys: Moon of Saturn, 1,062 km across, 294,619 km from Saturn.
   • Iapetus: Moon of Saturn, 1,469 km across, 3,560,820 km from Saturn.
   • Titan: Moon of Saturn, 5,149 km across, 1,221,870 km from Saturn.
   • Oberon: Moon of Uranus, 1,523 km across, 583,500 km from Uranus.
   • Ariel: Moon of Uranus, 1,158 km across, 190,900 km from Uranus.
   • Uranus: Ice giant, 50,724 km across, 19.2 AU from the Sun.
   • Umbriel: Moon of Uranus, 1,169 km across, 266,000 km from Uranus.
   • Miranda: Moon of Uranus, 472 km across, 129,900 km from Uranus.
   • Titania: Moon of Uranus, 1,578 km across, 436,300 km from Uranus.
   • Triton: Moon of Neptune, 2,707 km across, 354,759 km from Neptune.
   • Neptune: Ice giant, 49,244 km across, 30.1 AU from the Sun.
   • Halley’s Comet: Comet, 11 km across, on average 17.9 AU from the Sun.
   • Pluto: Dwarf planet, 2,377 km across, on average 39.3 AU from the Sun.
   • Charon: Moon of Pluto, 1,212 km across, 19,591 km from Pluto.

6. Heliosphere 10¹⁴ m, 10 to the power 14 metres across

   About 670 AU across; the Sun’s wind reaches about 120 AU out. Voyager 1, at 17 km/s, would need 34 years to reach the edge of the Sun’s wind.

   Voyager 1, launched in 1977, is about 172 AU from the Sun, the farthest any spacecraft has gone. It will be one light-day from Earth on 18 November 2026.

   Both Voyagers have crossed the heliopause, where the Sun’s wind gives way to interstellar space: Voyager 1 in 2012 at 121.6 AU, Voyager 2 in 2018.

   Sources: NASA NSSDC · JPL Horizons · Stone et al. 2019

   What is here

   • Quaoar: Dwarf planet, 1,110 km across, on average 43.2 AU from the Sun.
   • Arrokoth: Kuiper belt object, 18 km across, on average 44.1 AU from the Sun.
   • Kuiper belt: Small bodies of the Solar System: icy bodies beyond Neptune.
   • Haumea: Dwarf planet, 1,560 km across, on average 43.1 AU from the Sun.
   • Makemake: Dwarf planet, 1,430 km across, on average 45.6 AU from the Sun.
   • Sedna: Dwarf planet, 1,000 km across, on average 544 AU from the Sun.
   • Gonggong: Dwarf planet, 1,230 km across, on average 66.9 AU from the Sun.
   • Eris: Dwarf planet, 2,326 km across, on average 67.9 AU from the Sun.
   • Scattered disc: Small bodies of the Solar System: long orbits reaching far beyond.

7. Oort Cloud 10¹⁷ m, 10 to the power 17 metres across

   Thought to begin 2,000–5,000 AU out and reach 100,000 AU, about 1.6 light-years.

   The farthest part of the Solar System: a vast, thick shell of icy bodies thought to surround the Sun on every side, perhaps billions or even trillions of them. They are leftovers from the planets’ birth, flung far out by the gravity of the young giant planets, and they reach almost to where the pull of other stars takes over.

   No one has ever seen it. It is inferred from comets that take hundreds to millions of years to go round, and fall in from every direction, not along the planets’ plane: Jan Oort proposed in 1950 that they come from such a cloud, nudged inward by passing stars and the pull of the Milky Way. These dots are an illustration.

   Voyager 1 will not reach it for about 300 years, and may need 30,000 years to pass through.

   Sources: NASA Science · Oort 1950 · inferred, not observed

8. Nearest stars 10¹⁸ m, 10 to the power 18 metres across

   Proxima Centauri is 4.25 light-years away. Voyager 1, at 17 km/s, would need 75,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri.

   5,908 stars and brown dwarfs are catalogued within 82 light-years. Most are faint red dwarfs you cannot see without a telescope.

   Within 33 light-years alone there are 540 known objects, including 77 planets.

   Sources: CNS5 (Golovin et al. 2023) · Reylé et al. 2021 · every position from a measured parallax

   What is here

   • Total eclipse of the Sun over Spain: A moment, 12 Aug 2026.
   • Parker Solar Probe: Spacecraft, 0.67 AU from the Sun.
   • Europa Clipper: Spacecraft, 0.88 AU from the Sun.
   • JUICE: Spacecraft, 0.97 AU from the Sun.
   • Hubble Space Telescope: Satellite, 470 km up · Science.
   • Tiangong: Satellite, 387 km up · Space station.
   • Starlink satellites: Satellites, 11,129 in service.
   • GPS satellites: Satellites, 32 in service.
   • Galileo satellites: Satellites, 32 in service.
   • GLONASS satellites: Satellites, 29 in service.
   • BeiDou satellites: Satellites, 54 in service.
   • Geostationary ring: Satellites, 496 in service.
   • OneWeb satellites: Satellites, 651 in service.
   • Amazon Kuiper satellites: Satellites, 391 in service.
   • Weather satellites: Satellites, 72 in service.
   • Space stations: Satellites, 20 in service.
   • International Space Station: Satellite, 421 km up · Space station.
   • Apollo 11 lands on the Moon: A moment, 20 Jul 1969.
   • James Webb Space Telescope: Spacecraft, 1,320,777 km from Earth.
   • Mars at its closest in 60,000 years: A moment, 27 Aug 2003.
   • Juno: Spacecraft, in orbit round Jupiter · 4.9 million km out.
   • Jupiter and Saturn side by side: A moment, 21 Dec 2020.
   • Halley’s Comet rounds the Sun: A moment, 28 Jul 2061.
   • New Horizons: Spacecraft, 65.7 AU from the Sun · 9.1 hours from Earth.
   • Pioneer 11: Spacecraft, 118 AU from the Sun · 16.3 hours from Earth.
   • Pioneer 10: Spacecraft, 142 AU from the Sun · 19.6 hours from Earth.
   • Voyager 2: Spacecraft, 144 AU from the Sun · 20.0 hours from Earth.
   • Voyager 1: Spacecraft, 172 AU from the Sun · 23.9 hours from Earth.
   • Proxima Centauri: Red dwarf (M5.5 V), 4.25 light-years away. The nearest star to the Sun, a small flaring red dwarf bound to Alpha Centauri A and B.
   • Alpha Centauri A: G-type main-sequence star (G2 V), 4.34 light-years away. A near twin of the Sun, circled every 80 years by Alpha Centauri B.
   • Alpha Centauri B: K-type main-sequence star (K1 V), 4.34 light-years away. The smaller, orange companion of Alpha Centauri A; the two orbit each other every 80 years.
   • Barnard’s Star: Red dwarf (M4 V), 5.96 light-years away. The nearest single star, crossing the sky faster than any other.
   • Wolf 359: Red dwarf (M6 V), 7.86 light-years away. One of the faintest stars near the Sun, a young red dwarf that flares about every two hours.
   • Lalande 21185: Red dwarf (M2 V), 8.30 light-years away. The brightest red dwarf in the northern sky, too faint to see without a telescope.
   • Sirius A: A-type main-sequence star (A0–A1 V), 8.60 light-years away. The brightest star in the night sky.
   • Sirius B: White dwarf (DA2), 8.60 light-years away. The nearest white dwarf: the core left behind by a star that once outshone Sirius A.
   • Epsilon Eridani: K-type main-sequence star (K2 V), 10.5 light-years away. A young, Sun-like star ringed by dust belts, with a Jupiter-like planet.
   • 61 Cygni A: K-type main-sequence star (K5 V), 11.4 light-years away. The first star whose distance was measured, by Friedrich Bessel in 1838.
   • 61 Cygni B: K-type main-sequence star (K7 V), 11.4 light-years away. The smaller of the 61 Cygni pair, an orange dwarf.
   • Procyon A: F-type star leaving the main sequence (F5 IV–V), 11.5 light-years away. A star finishing the hydrogen in its core, about to become a subgiant and later a red giant.
   • Procyon B: White dwarf (DQZ), 11.5 light-years away. A faint white dwarf orbiting Procyon A every 41 years; it has been cooling for about 1.4 billion years.
   • Tau Ceti: G-type main-sequence star (G8 V), 11.9 light-years away. An old, metal-poor star much like the Sun, one of the nearest single Sun-like stars.
   • Luyten’s Star: Red dwarf (M3.5 V), 12.3 light-years away. A quiet red dwarf with a super-Earth in its temperate zone.
   • Kapteyn’s Star: Red subdwarf (sdM1), 12.8 light-years away. The nearest star from the Milky Way’s halo, racing through the disc.
   • Altair: A-type main-sequence star (A7 Vn), 16.7 light-years away. It spins once every 7 hours 46 minutes, so fast that its equator bulges 22% wider than its poles and glows cooler.
   • Vega: A-type main-sequence star (A0 V), 25.0 light-years away. A fast-spinning star seen almost pole-on, surrounded by a disc of dust.
   • Fomalhaut: A-type main-sequence star (A4 V), 25.1 light-years away. A young star inside a wide ring of dust, like a far larger Kuiper belt.
   • Pollux: Orange giant (K0 III), 33.8 light-years away. The nearest giant star to the Sun, with a giant planet.
   • L 98-59: A star with five planets, 34.6 light-years away.
   • Arcturus: Red giant (K1.5 III), 36.7 light-years away. An old star that has left the main sequence: what the Sun will look like in about 5 billion years.
   • TRAPPIST-1: Ultracool red dwarf (M8 V), 40.7 light-years away. A star barely bigger than Jupiter with seven rocky planets packed closer than Mercury is to the Sun.
   • VHS J125601.92-125723.9: A star with one planet, 41.4 light-years away.
   • Capella Aa: Yellow giant (G8 III), 42.9 light-years away. Two giants orbiting every 104 days.
   • Capella Ab: Yellow giant (G0 III), 42.9 light-years away. The second giant of Capella, crossing quickly from the main sequence to the red giants.
   • Castor: A-type main-sequence star (A1 V), in a system of six stars, 49.2 light-years away. Six stars in three pairs: Castor A and B orbit each other every 450 years, and each is itself a close pair; Castor C is a pair of red dwarfs.

9. Orion Arm 10²⁰ m, 10 to the power 20 metres across

   Shown: about 10,600 light-years across; the arm itself runs more than 20,000. Voyager 1, at 17 km/s, would need 190 million years to cross the part shown.

   The Sun sits in a small spiral arm, the Local or Orion Arm, inside a bubble about 1,000 light-years wide blown out by old supernovae. The dashed cone is the patch of sky Kepler watched; most known planets are inside it.

   Stars here are a sample from Gaia and Hipparcos. Fainter stars are missing, so the cloud thins with distance: an effect of our viewpoint, not of the galaxy.

   Sources: Gaia DR3 (ESA/Gaia/DPAC) · Hipparcos · 4,751 planet hosts · Xu et al. 2016 · Zucker et al. 2022

   What is here

   • bet Pic: A star with three planets, 64.4 light-years away. Young star with an edge-on debris disc, exocomets and three giant planets.
   • Aldebaran: Red giant (K5 III), 66.6 light-years away. The orange eye of Taurus, a red giant about 45 times wider than the Sun.
   • Regulus: B-type star (B8 IVn), 79.3 light-years away. It spins so fast that it is flattened; a companion star probably gave it that spin before shrinking to a pre-white dwarf.
   • Algol: Eclipsing binary (B8 V primary), 94.0 light-years away. Every 2.87 days its dimmer companion passes in front and Algol fades for a few hours.
   • TOI-700: A star with four planets, 102 light-years away. TESS's first Earth-size habitable-zone planet, TOI-700 d (2020); a second, e, followed in 2023.
   • TWA 7: A star with one planet, 111 light-years away. Young red dwarf with a three-ring debris disc and a JWST-imaged planet candidate (2025).
   • HR 8799: A star with four planets, 135 light-years away. First multi-planet system imaged directly: four giant planets (2008-2010).
   • Achernar: Be star (B6 Vpe), 139 light-years away. The flattest star known: it spins so fast that its equator looks about 1.5 times as wide as its poles, and it sheds a disc of gas.
   • Hyades: Star cluster, Open cluster · 153 ly.
   • 2MASS J12073346-3932539: A star with one planet, 210 light-years away. Young brown dwarf with the first directly imaged planetary-mass companion (2004).
   • Spica: B-type main-sequence star (B1 V), a close pair, 250 light-years away. Two hot stars orbiting every four days, so close they are stretched into eggs.
   • Bellatrix: Blue giant (B2 III), 252 light-years away. A hot blue star, probably two similar stars too close to separate, which explains why it looked too bright for one.
   • Mira: Pulsating red giant (M5–M9 IIIe), 299 light-years away. It swells and shrinks every 332 days, brightening from invisible to easily seen.
   • Canopus: Bright giant (A9 II), 309 light-years away. The second-brightest star in the night sky, a massive star past its hydrogen-burning life.
   • PDS 70: A star with two planets, 369 light-years away. Young star with two accreting planets imaged inside a gap in its disc.
   • Pleiades: Star cluster, Open cluster · 440 ly.
   • Polaris: Yellow supergiant, a Cepheid (F8 Ib), 447 light-years away. A pulsating Cepheid in a triple system, now within a degree of the north celestial pole.
   • Rho Ophiuchi Cloud: Nebula, Dark nebula · 451 ly.
   • Taurus Molecular Cloud: Star-forming region, 460 light-years away. Prototypical low-mass star-forming region; its clouds lie about 130-200 pc away.
   • Upper Scorpius: Star-forming region, 473 light-years away. Part of Sco-Cen, the nearest OB association; about 10 Myr old, ~1,760 members.
   • Betelgeuse: Red supergiant (M1–M2 Ia–Iab), 548 light-years away. A red supergiant fusing helium in its core.
   • Antares: Red supergiant (M1.5 Iab), 554 light-years away. A red supergiant with a hot blue companion.
   • Alpha Persei Cluster: Star cluster, Open cluster · 566 ly.
   • Beehive Cluster: Star cluster, Open cluster · 598 ly.
   • Coalsack Nebula: Nebula, Dark nebula · 616 ly.
   • Helix Nebula: Planetary nebula, Planetary nebula · 649 ly.
   • Geminga: Pulsar, 815 light-years away. Radio-quiet gamma-ray pulsar; a nearby neutron star.
   • Rigel: Blue supergiant (B8 Ia), 863 light-years away. One of the nearest stars expected to end as a core-collapse supernova (Moravveji et al. 2012).
   • Ptolemy Cluster: Star cluster, Open cluster · 900 ly.
   • Vela Supernova Remnant: Supernova remnant, Supernova remnant · 936 ly.
   • Messier 39: Star cluster, Open cluster · 965 ly.
   • Winnecke 4: Asterism, Asterism · 1,013 ly.
   • Alnitak: Blue supergiant (O9.5 Iab), 1,262 light-years away. The eastern star of Orion’s Belt, a hot supergiant with two companions.
   • Dumbbell Nebula: Planetary nebula, Planetary nebula · 1,266 ly.
   • Orion Nebula: Nebula, Emission nebula · 1,314 ly.
   • De Mairan's Nebula: Nebula, Emission nebula · 1,314 ly.
   • Messier 78: Nebula, Reflection nebula · 1,318 ly.
   • Horsehead Nebula: Nebula, Dark nebula · 1,380 ly.
   • Butterfly Cluster: Star cluster, Open cluster · 1,474 ly.
   • Messier 47: Star cluster, Open cluster · 1,527 ly.
   • Messier 34: Star cluster, Open cluster · 1,597 ly.
   • Messier 25: Star cluster, Open cluster · 2,103 ly.
   • Cone Nebula: Nebula, Emission nebula and young cluster · 2,284 ly.
   • Messier 73: Asterism, Asterism · 2,290 ly.
   • Messier 23: Star cluster, Open cluster · 2,327 ly.
   • Messier 41: Star cluster, Open cluster · 2,332 ly.
   • Veil Nebula: Supernova remnant, Supernova remnant · 2,365 ly.
   • Messier 48: Star cluster, Open cluster · 2,437 ly.
   • Southern Ring Nebula: Planetary nebula, Planetary nebula · 2,476 ly.
   • Ring Nebula: Planetary nebula, Planetary nebula · 2,577 ly.
   • North America Nebula: Nebula, Emission nebula · 2,593 ly.
   • Deneb: White supergiant (A2 Ia), 2,620 light-years away. One of the most luminous stars visible to the eye.
   • Owl Nebula: Planetary nebula, Planetary nebula · 2,645 ly.
   • Messier 67: Star cluster, Open cluster · 2,731 ly.
   • Messier 35: Star cluster, Open cluster · 2,735 ly.
   • Mu Cephei: Red supergiant (M2 Ia), 2,841 light-years away. William Herschel’s “Garnet Star”, one of the largest stars in the Milky Way.
   • Messier 50: Star cluster, Open cluster · 3,120 ly.
   • Messier 93: Star cluster, Open cluster · 3,167 ly.
   • Starfish Cluster: Star cluster, Open cluster · 3,540 ly.
   • Pinwheel Cluster: Star cluster, Open cluster · 3,669 ly.
   • VY Canis Majoris: Red hypergiant (M5 Iae), 3,816 light-years away. Born with 25–32 times the Sun’s mass, it is shedding its outer layers into a vast dusty cloud and will soon turn hotter before it explodes.
   • Butterfly Nebula: Planetary nebula, Planetary nebula · 3,816 ly.
   • Messier 21: Star cluster, Open cluster · 3,920 ly.
   • Lagoon Nebula: Nebula, Emission nebula and young cluster · 4,012 ly.
   • Trifid Nebula: Nebula, Emission nebula · 4,123 ly.
   • Little Dumbbell Nebula: Planetary nebula, Planetary nebula · 4,433 ly.
   • Cat's Eye Nebula: Planetary nebula, Planetary nebula · 4,446 ly.
   • Cygnus X: Star-forming region, 4,570 light-years away. Massive star-forming complex; four maser regions lie at a common 1.40 kpc.
   • Messier 37: Star cluster, Open cluster · 4,571 ly.
   • Rosette Nebula: Nebula, Emission nebula and young cluster · 4,616 ly.
   • Messier 18: Star cluster, Open cluster · 4,895 ly.
   • Messier 46: Star cluster, Open cluster · 5,070 ly.
   • Messier 52: Star cluster, Open cluster · 5,123 ly.
   • Omega Nebula: Nebula, Emission nebula · 5,479 ly.
   • Eagle Nebula: Nebula, Emission nebula and young cluster · 5,538 ly.
   • Messier 29: Star cluster, Open cluster · 5,574 ly.
   • Eskimo Nebula: Planetary nebula, Planetary nebula · 5,855 ly.
   • Messier 26: Star cluster, Open cluster · 5,986 ly.
   • Messier 4: Globular cluster, 6,030 light-years away. Nearest known globular cluster to the Sun; about 90,000 solar masses.
   • Orion (Local) Arm: A spiral arm of the Milky Way, traced by radio parallaxes of star-forming regions.
   • Crab Nebula: Supernova remnant, Supernova remnant · 6,197 ly.
   • UY Scuti: Red supergiant (M4 Iae), 6,314 light-years away. Once listed as the largest known star; with the newer Gaia distance it is closer and smaller, still over a thousand times the Sun’s width.

10. Milky Way 10²¹ m, 10 to the power 21 metres across

    About 100,000 light-years across; 100–400 billion stars. Voyager 1, at 17 km/s, would need 1.8 billion years to cross it.

    The Sun is about 27,000 light-years from the centre and takes over 200 million years to go around once. If one lap were a day, all of written history would last about two seconds.

    No one can photograph our galaxy from outside. This map is a model: arms from radio parallaxes (Reid et al. 2019), extended beyond the measured parts; the globular clusters are real (Harris 2010).

    Sources: GRAVITY Collaboration 2021 · NASA · model galaxy

    What is here

    • Jewel Box: Star cluster, Open cluster · 6,453 ly.
    • Wild Duck Cluster: Star cluster, Open cluster · 7,283 ly.
    • Double Cluster: Star cluster, Open cluster · 7,456 ly.
    • Eta Carinae: Luminous blue variable, in a massive binary, 7,660 light-years away. One of the most massive binary stars in the Milky Way.
    • Carina Nebula: Nebula, Emission nebula and young cluster · 7,665 ly.
    • Messier 103: Star cluster, Open cluster · 8,241 ly.
    • Sagittarius Star Cloud: Star cloud, Star cloud · 10,000 ly.
    • M 22: Globular cluster: hundreds of thousands of old stars orbiting the Milky Way, 10,437 light-years away.
    • Cassiopeia A: Supernova remnant, Supernova remnant · 10,861 ly.
    • Westerlund 1: Star cluster, Young massive cluster · 13,796 ly.
    • 47 Tucanae: Globular cluster, 14,700 light-years away. Second-brightest globular cluster in the sky; about 850,000 solar masses.
    • Omega Centauri: Globular cluster, 17,700 light-years away. Most massive and brightest Milky Way globular cluster; about 4 million solar masses.
    • Norma Arm: A spiral arm of the Milky Way, traced by radio parallaxes of star-forming regions.
    • NGC 3603: Nebula, Emission nebula and young cluster · 22,098 ly.
    • M 13: Globular cluster: hundreds of thousands of old stars orbiting the Milky Way, 23,157 light-years away.
    • Scutum–Centaurus Arm: A spiral arm of the Milky Way, traced by radio parallaxes of star-forming regions.
    • Outer Arm: A spiral arm of the Milky Way, traced by radio parallaxes of star-forming regions.
    • S2: Star around the black hole, 16.0 years around Sagittarius A*.
    • Milky Way: Our galaxy: a barred spiral about 100,000 light-years across, with 100–400 billion stars.
    • Sagittarius A*: The black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, 4.3 million times the Sun’s mass, 26,990 light-years away.
    • Sagittarius–Carina Arm: A spiral arm of the Milky Way, traced by radio parallaxes of star-forming regions.
    • Perseus Arm: A spiral arm of the Milky Way, traced by radio parallaxes of star-forming regions.

11. Satellite galaxies 10²² m, 10 to the power 22 metres across

    About a million light-years across. Voyager 1, at 17 km/s, would need 2.8 billion years to reach the Large Magellanic Cloud.

    The Large Magellanic Cloud, 160,000 light-years away, is the biggest of the dozens of small galaxies that orbit ours.

    Many of the faintest were found only since 2005, in deep surveys of the sky.

    Sources: McConnachie 2012 · Pietrzyński et al. 2019

    What is here

    • Sagittarius dSph: Satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, 85,779 light-years away.
    • WOH G64: Red supergiant in the Large Magellanic Cloud (M7.5 I), 161,700 light-years away. Among the largest stars known outside the Milky Way.
    • R136a1: Wolf–Rayet star (WN5h), the most massive star known, 161,700 light-years away. A young giant at the heart of the Tarantula Nebula, blowing off its mass in a fierce wind.
    • Large Magellanic Cloud: Satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, 161,700 light-years away.
    • Tarantula Nebula: Nebula, Emission nebula · in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
    • Small Magellanic Cloud: Satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, 203,700 light-years away.
    • Fornax: Satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, 480,102 light-years away.

12. Local Group 10²³ m, 10 to the power 23 metres across

    About 6 million light-years across; more than 110 galaxies. Voyager 1, at 17 km/s, would need 44 billion years to reach Andromeda, 3.2 times the age of the universe.

    Mostly dark, empty space: two big spirals about 25 Milky Way widths apart, and a scatter of dwarf galaxies, most too faint to see. The gas between them is thinner than any vacuum made on Earth.

    Andromeda is 2.5 million light-years away and closing at about 110 km/s. Whether the two will merge is no longer certain: recent studies give from even odds to about 90% within 10 billion years.

    Andromeda and Triangulum are survey photographs (the Digitized Sky Survey) laid on their measured discs.

    Sources: McConnachie 2012 · Karachentsev et al. 2009 · Li et al. 2021 · Sawala et al. 2025 · Wu et al. 2026 · photographs: Digitized Sky Survey 2 (STScI), colour by CDS

    What is here

    • Leo I: Satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, 826,807 light-years away.
    • NGC 6822: Galaxy of the Local Group, 1.5 million light-years away.
    • NGC 185: Satellite galaxy of Andromeda, 1.9 million light-years away.
    • Andromeda II: Satellite galaxy of Andromeda, 2.1 million light-years away.
    • NGC 147: Satellite galaxy of Andromeda, 2.1 million light-years away.
    • Andromeda VII: Satellite galaxy of Andromeda, 2.4 million light-years away.
    • IC 1613: Galaxy of the Local Group, 2.5 million light-years away.
    • M32: Satellite galaxy of Andromeda, 2.5 million light-years away.
    • M110 · NGC 205: Satellite galaxy of Andromeda, 2.5 million light-years away.
    • Andromeda: Spiral galaxy, the largest in the Local Group, 2.5 million light-years away.
    • IC 10: Satellite galaxy of Andromeda, 2.5 million light-years away.
    • Triangulum: Spiral galaxy, the third largest in the Local Group, 2.8 million light-years away.
    • WLM (Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte): Galaxy of the Local Group, 3.0 million light-years away.

13. Virgo Supercluster 10²⁴ m, 10 to the power 24 metres across

    Roughly 110–160 million light-years across.

    The Local Group sits near its edge. The Virgo Cluster, 54 million light-years away, has about 1,300 member galaxies.

    Every dot is a catalogued galaxy. Nearby ones have measured distances; farther ones are placed by their redshift, with each cluster’s spread along the line of sight pulled in to match its width.

    Sources: UNGC (Karachentsev et al. 2013) · 2MRS · SDSS DR18 · DESI DR1 · Mei et al. 2007

    What is here

    • Maffei 2: Nearby galaxy with a measured distance, 9.1 million light-years away.
    • Maffei 1: Nearby galaxy with a measured distance, 9.8 million light-years away.
    • Sculptor group: Group, 11.8 million light-years away. Loose filament of galaxies around NGC 253, stretched along our line of sight.
    • M81 group: Group, 11.8 million light-years away. Group around the spirals M81 and M82 in Ursa Major.
    • Centaurus A / M83 group: Group, 11.9 million light-years away. Two subgroups, around the radio galaxy Centaurus A and the spiral M83.
    • NGC 5128: Nearby galaxy with a measured distance, 12.2 million light-years away.
    • NGC 4945: Nearby galaxy with a measured distance, 12.4 million light-years away.
    • Canes Venatici I group: Group, 14.2 million light-years away. Loose cloud of mostly dwarf galaxies around M94.
    • Maffei group: Group, 18.7 million light-years away. Group hidden behind the Milky Way's dusty plane; ~2.5 Mpc behind the IC 342 group.
    • NGC 6946: Nearby galaxy with a measured distance, 19.2 million light-years away.
    • NGC 4258: Nearby galaxy with a measured distance, 25.5 million light-years away.
    • Leo I group: Group, 35.2 million light-years away. Group containing M95, M96 and M105 in Leo.
    • Virgo Cluster: Cluster, 53.8 million light-years away. Nearest large cluster, centred on the giant elliptical M87.
    • Ursa Major cluster: Cluster, 60.7 million light-years away. Spiral-rich, loosely bound group of groups; recently called a 'supergroup'.

14. Laniakea Supercluster 10²⁵ m, 10 to the power 25 metres across

    About 520 million light-years across; roughly 100,000 large galaxies.

    Mapped in 2014 from how galaxies move: everything here drifts toward the Great Attractor, about 200 million light-years away. Laniakea is Hawaiian for “immense heaven”.

    Each bright dot is a galaxy from a redshift survey. Where no survey has looked, mostly behind the dusty plane of our own galaxy, fainter dots are an impression of what is there.

    Sources: 2MRS · 6dFGS · SDSS DR18 · DESI DR1 · 2dFGRS · Tully et al. 2014

    What is here

    • Fornax Cluster: Cluster, 65.2 million light-years away. Compact, relaxed cluster centred on the giant elliptical NGC 1399.
    • Eridanus group: Group, 75.0 million light-years away. Loose group of ~200 galaxies, including the NGC 1407 subgroup.
    • Local Void: Void, 106 million light-years away. Vast empty region bordering the Local Group, largely hidden behind the Milky Way.
    • Antlia Cluster: Cluster, 115 million light-years away. Third-nearest populous cluster after Virgo and Fornax; centred on NGC 3258 and NGC 3268.
    • Arrowhead Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 129 million years ago. Defined by galaxy flows and squeezed between Laniakea, Perseus–Pisces and Coma, it contains no major clusters and only about 10^15 solar masses.
    • Centaurus Cluster: Cluster, 131 million light-years away. Rich cluster around NGC 4696, near the Great Attractor region.
    • Hydra Cluster: Cluster, 166 million light-years away. Nearby cluster centred on NGC 3311; its distance is still debated.
    • Great Attractor: Attractor, 186 million light-years away. Mass concentration pulling nearby galaxies; largely hidden behind the Milky Way's plane.
    • Pavo-Indus Supercluster: Supercluster, 198 million light-years away. Filament of groups (Pavo II, Indus) rising from the Great Attractor region; in Laniakea.
    • Hydra–Centaurus Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 214 million years ago. It is the nearest supercluster in both the Einasto et al. (2001) and MSCC catalogues of Abell-cluster superclusters, and contains the Hydra (Abell 1060) and Centaurus (Abell 3526) clusters.
    • Norma Cluster: Cluster, 209 million light-years away. Most massive cluster in the Great Attractor region, behind the Milky Way's plane.
    • Sculptor Void: Void, seen as it was 220 million years ago. Named by Fairall (1998), it is roughly twice the diameter and ten times the volume of our neighbouring Local Void.
    • Perseus Cluster: Cluster, 224 million light-years away. Rich cluster around the active galaxy NGC 1275; part of Perseus-Pisces.
    • Perseus-Pisces Supercluster: Supercluster, 232 million light-years away. Largest structure within z ~ 0.03: a long chain of clusters across the northern sky.
    • Leo Cluster: Cluster, 297 million light-years away. Cluster that forms the Coma/A1367 supercluster together with Coma.
    • Coma Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 313 million years ago. A clear filament of galaxies connects its two richest clusters, the Coma Cluster (Abell 1656) and Abell 1367.
    • Coma Cluster: Cluster, 321 million light-years away. Rich cluster at the centre of the CfA2 Great Wall.
    • CfA2 Great Wall: Wall, seen as it was 410 million years ago. Discovered by Geller & Huchra (1989) in the CfA2 redshift survey, this sheet of galaxies stretches across 7.7 hours of right ascension.
    • Ophiuchus Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 419 million years ago. Several groups and clusters within 8 degrees of the massive Ophiuchus Cluster form a supercluster-like structure near the Great Attractor, fronted by a large void that appears to continue the Local Void.
    • Leo Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 466 million years ago. Its richest cluster, Abell 1185, is separated from the Coma Supercluster cluster Abell 1367 by a low-density region.
    • Hercules Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 507 million years ago. Its heart is formed by the galaxy clusters Abell 2147, 2151 and 2152, and its total mass has been estimated at about 2 × 10^15 solar masses.
    • Hercules Cluster: Cluster, 518 million light-years away. Galaxy cluster in Hercules, about half a billion light-years away.
    • South Pole Wall: Wall, seen as it was 562 million years ago. Mapped from galaxy peculiar velocities, it rivals the Sloan Great Wall in extent at about half the distance, and its densest part lies at the celestial South Pole.
    • Quipu superstructure Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 602 million years ago. About 1.4 billion light-years long and roughly 2.4 × 10^17 solar masses, it was described by its discoverers as the largest cosmic structure found to date.

15. The cosmic web 10²⁶ m, 10 to the power 26 metres across

    About 10 billion light-years across.

    Galaxies gather in walls and filaments around empty voids. The Sloan Great Wall, about 1.4 billion light-years long, lies a billion light-years away; the BOSS Great Wall, about as long, is seen as it was 5 billion years ago.

    8.8 million galaxies and quasars with measured redshifts fill two broad cones above and below the Milky Way’s plane. Everywhere else, the fainter speckle is an impression of the web.

    Sources: SDSS DR18 · DESI DR1 · 6dFGS · 2dFGRS · 2MRS · Gott et al. 2005 · Lietzen et al. 2016

    What is here

    • Shapley Supercluster: Supercluster, 689 million light-years away. One of the most massive structures in the local universe; main 'attractor' in flows.
    • Bootes Void: Void, 698 million light-years away. One of the largest known voids, found in 1981; roughly spherical.
    • Sextans Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 750 million years ago. It is one of the superclusters that together make up the Sloan Great Wall.
    • Dipole Repeller: Repeller, 747 million light-years away. Inferred under-dense region whose 'push' adds to our motion; roughly opposite Shapley.
    • Vela Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 830 million years ago. Hidden behind the Milky Way, it was revealed by about 4,500 new galaxy redshifts and may contribute at least 50 km/s to the motion of the Local Group.
    • Pisces–Cetus Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 844 million years ago. Tully (1986–88) identified Pisces–Cetus as one of the five richest systems of galaxy clusters within z < 0.1 and speculated that it could be about 300 megaparsecs (roughly a billion light-years) across and might even include the Local Group.
    • Ursa Major Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 883 million years ago. Its clusters lie along three large filaments with mean redshifts of 0.051, 0.060 and 0.071.
    • Horologium–Reticulum Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 909 million years ago. It covers more than 12 x 12 degrees of sky, and its galaxies span recession velocities of at least 17,000 to 22,500 km/s.
    • Boötes Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 975 million years ago. Together with the Hercules and Corona Borealis superclusters it surrounds the vast Boötes Void.
    • Sloan Great Wall: Wall, 1.0 billion light-years away. A 1.4-billion-light-year wall of galaxies found in Sloan survey data (2003).
    • Corona Borealis Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 1.0 billion years ago. Pearson et al. (2014) concluded that five of its clusters (Abell 2056, 2061, 2065, 2067 and 2089) probably form a gravitationally bound supercluster.
    • Aquarius Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 1.2 billion years ago. Aquarius B, which lies behind it along almost the same line of sight, is with 42 member clusters the richest system in the MSCC catalogue.
    • Microscopium Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 1.2 billion years ago. Its clusters Abell 3695 and Abell 3696 form a gravitationally bound pair.
    • Caelum Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 1.4 billion years ago. It was first catalogued in 1997 as a supercluster candidate; at the time only two of its 11 member clusters had measured redshifts.
    • Giant Void: Void, seen as it was 1.4 billion years ago. No rich Abell galaxy cluster lies inside a sphere about 214 megaparsecs (700 million light-years) across here, and the clusters around it show no detectable outflow from the void.
    • Draco Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 1.5 billion years ago. First catalogued in 1997, it borders the far side of the Boötes Void and has a pancake-like shape with axis ratios of about 1:4:5.
    • Sculptor Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 1.5 billion years ago. It is one of the four richest superclusters in the Einasto et al. (2001) catalogue, together with Shapley, Pisces–Cetus and Aquarius.
    • Eridanus Supervoid: Void, seen as it was 2.7 billion years ago. This supervoid lies in the direction of the CMB Cold Spot, but in standard ΛCDM cosmology its expected imprint accounts for only about 10-20% of the Cold Spot's temperature dip.
    • Einasto Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 3.0 billion years ago. The most massive of 662 superclusters found in SDSS data (about 2.6 × 10^16 solar masses in 54 clusters), it was named after the cosmic-web pioneer Jaan Einasto.
    • Saraswati Supercluster: Supercluster, seen as it was 3.3 billion years ago. Its main body contains at least 43 massive galaxy clusters with a combined mass of about 2 × 10^16 solar masses.
    • BOSS Great Wall: Wall, seen as it was 5.0 billion years ago. Made of two huge walls and two further superclusters containing 830 catalogued galaxies, it is one of the most extended and massive systems of superclusters known.

16. Observable universe 10²⁷ m, 10 to the power 27 metres across

    About 93 billion light-years across; 13.8 billion years old.

    Its edge is the cosmic microwave background: light released 380,000 years after the Big Bang, drawn here as the WMAP satellite mapped it. Space has stretched since, so that edge is now about 46 billion light-years away.

    The farthest galaxy known, MoM-z14, is seen as it was 280 million years after the Big Bang. Between the farthest galaxies and the edge lies a time no telescope has seen yet: the dark ages, and the birth of the first stars.

    Sources: WMAP 9-year (Bennett et al. 2013) · Planck Collaboration 2020 · Naidu et al. 2026

    What is here

    • Giant Arc: Filament, seen as it was 7.0 billion years ago. Traced by magnesium absorption in the spectra of background quasars, this ~1 Gpc arc has been challenged by simulations showing similar patterns arise by chance in standard cosmology.
    • Big Ring: Filament, seen as it was 7.0 billion years ago. This near-circular ring of absorbers about 400 Mpc across lies only ~12 degrees from the Giant Arc at the same redshift.
    • El Gordo: Cluster, seen as it was 7.4 billion years ago. When described in 2012 it was likely the most massive, hottest and most X-ray-luminous galaxy cluster known beyond z = 0.6; it is undergoing a major merger and may be a distant analogue of the Bullet Cluster.
    • Huge-LQG: Lqg, seen as it was 8.9 billion years ago. This group of 73 quasars has a longest dimension of about 1,240 Mpc, but later analyses found that the same method finds comparable groupings in random point sets.
    • Clowes–Campusano LQG: Lqg, seen as it was 8.9 billion years ago. First reported in 1991, this group of 34 quasars lies about 8.8 degrees south of the Huge-LQG at the same redshift.
    • Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall: Wall, seen as it was 10.5 billion years ago. Proposed from a clustering of gamma-ray bursts at redshift ~2, its reality is doubted by later analyses that attribute the clustering to chance and sky-exposure effects.
    • Spiderweb protocluster: Protocluster, seen as it was 10.7 billion years ago. A detection of the Sunyaev–Zeldovich effect revealed hot gas, a newly forming intracluster medium, in this protocluster about 10 billion years ago.
    • Hyperion proto-supercluster: Protocluster, seen as it was 11.1 billion years ago. This proto-supercluster contains at least seven density peaks linked by filaments, with an estimated total mass of about 4.8 × 10^15 solar masses.
    • SPT2349-56 protocluster: Protocluster, seen as it was 12.4 billion years ago. At least 14 gas-rich galaxies, each forming stars 50 to 1000 times faster than the Milky Way, are packed within about 130 kiloparsecs, when the Universe was only 1.4 billion years old.
    • J0313−1806: Quasar, seen as it was 13.1 billion years ago. The most distant quasar known, it hosts a black hole of about 1.6 billion solar masses only ~670 million years after the Big Bang.
    • UHZ1: Galaxy, seen as it was 13.3 billion years ago. Reported in 2023 as the most distant X-ray-detected black hole, but a 2026 re-analysis of deeper Chandra data found the X-ray signal to be only about 2-3 sigma and not robust.
    • JADES-GS-z14-0: Galaxy, seen as it was 13.5 billion years ago. Now the second most distant confirmed galaxy, it is unexpectedly luminous and spatially resolved, with a radius of about 260 parsecs, only about 300 million years after the Big Bang.
    • MoM-z14: Galaxy, seen as it was 13.5 billion years ago. The most distant spectroscopically confirmed galaxy known, seen just 280 million years after the Big Bang.

Planets are placed for the day this text was made. Catalogues: the NASA Exoplanet Archive (6,372 planets around 4,779 stars), ESA Gaia and Hipparcos, the Catalogue of Nearby Stars, galaxy redshift surveys and the sources named at each step.