The Universe and Our Place in It
The universe has existed for billions of years, stretching across billions of galaxies, each containing billions of stars. Imagine a vast sphere filled with countless smaller spheres, and within those, even tinier spheres. That is a simple way to picture the structure of the cosmos, though even that does not capture its endless scale. Out of all these galaxies, we belong to one—the Milky Way. And even within the Milky Way, among its hundreds of billions of stars and planets, we orbit just one star: the Sun. On one of its planets—Earth—life exists. As far as we know today, Earth is the only place in the universe that cradles life.
Think about that for a moment. In the unimaginable vastness of the universe, our home is a speck, a fragile blue dot suspended in cosmic darkness. From a distance, Earth is so small it could be mistaken for nothing at all. And yet, on this little planet, every story, every dream, every moment of joy and struggle, every rise and fall of human history has unfolded. The scale is humbling. It makes you pause, because how can so much meaning, so much love and loss, be compressed into something so tiny when measured against the backdrop of infinity?
The universe is estimated to be about 13.8 billion years old. Humanity, in comparison, is impossibly young. Our species has only been around for a few hundred thousand years—a blink of an eye when set against cosmic time. Civilisations rise and fall in what the universe would consider seconds. We build, we conquer, we destroy, we create again. To the stars, we are newcomers. Yet here we are, with the ability to look up and even attempt to measure the age of the very thing that birthed us. That, to me, is one of the most beautiful aspects of the cosmos: not only that it exists, but that it somehow made beings capable of wondering about it.
What makes the universe even more astonishing is our connection to it. We are not separate from the stars above; we are products of them. The elements that make up our bodies—the iron in our blood, the oxygen we breathe, the calcium in our bones—were all forged in stars that lived, burned, and died long before Earth ever existed. We are, in the most literal sense, stardust come alive. When I think about that, it becomes harder to see myself as just a random accident of biology. It feels more like we are part of a larger unfolding story, woven into the very fabric of existence.
And then there is the beauty. The night sky alone is enough to stop you in your tracks. Those pinpoints of light, some so faint you almost doubt your eyes, are not just dots. Each one is a sun, many larger and brighter than ours, with its own planets circling around it. Some of the light we see has been travelling for thousands, even millions of years, crossing unimaginable distances just to reach us now. To look at the stars is to look back in time. That realisation always stirs something deep in me. It makes me aware of how brief my life is and how much has come before me, yet it also makes me feel deeply privileged to be able to witness it at all.
Of course, the universe is not only beautiful but also mysterious. There are black holes, places where gravity is so strong that not even light can escape. There are galaxies colliding, stars exploding in supernovas, and new stars being born in vast clouds of gas and dust. There was the beginning—the Big Bang—that moment of incomprehensible energy that set everything in motion. These are wonders that stretch the imagination, but what strikes me most is not how strange they are but how they coexist with the ordinary moments of life. Somewhere, as you are reading this, entire worlds are colliding. And yet, here on Earth, someone is laughing with friends, someone else is falling in love, a child is taking their first steps, and an old man is watching the sunset for perhaps the last time. The cosmos holds both scales at once: the infinite and the intimate.
Sometimes, when life feels heavy, I try to remember this. Our problems can feel enormous and overwhelming, as if they are the centre of everything. But when set against the backdrop of the universe, they shrink. The stress, the fears, the small battles we fight day to day—they are still real, but they are not everything. The stars remind us that there is more, that existence itself is larger than whatever weight we carry. This perspective doesn’t erase struggle, but it softens it. It helps me breathe.
And yet, I don’t think the point of the universe is to make us feel small—quite the opposite. To me, the wonder of it all is that something so vast and ancient has given rise to beings who can think, love, create, and choose. We are not only made of stardust—we are stardust with awareness. That awareness is rare. As far as we know, Earth is the only place where the universe has become conscious of itself. That is not something to dismiss lightly. It is a gift, and maybe also a responsibility.
What do we do with that awareness? That’s where purpose comes in. The cosmos, as grand as it is, is indifferent. Stars burn and die without concern, galaxies collide without intention. But we, in our tiny corner, are capable of care. We can create meaning where none is written. We can use our brief lives not just to consume and fade away, but to build, to nurture, to leave something better than we found it. Maybe the point is not to conquer the universe but to honour the part of it we inhabit. Maybe our purpose is to live in such a way that the universe, through us, creates beauty, kindness, and wonder it would not otherwise have.
When I look up at the night sky, I don’t see cold emptiness. I see a reflection of possibility. I see reminders that even the darkest void is filled with light if you wait long enough. I see that fragility and strength can exist at once—a planet so delicate it could vanish in an instant, yet still capable of harbouring life and love. I see the reminder that time is fleeting, but meaning is not.
So perhaps the universe is not asking us to solve it, but simply to notice it. To look up and let ourselves feel awe. To look within and recognise the same atoms that shine in the stars. To look around and realise that, despite everything, we are here, alive, conscious, and capable of wonder. That is more than enough.