Photo credit: NASA. Dwarf Galaxy known as Leo A, taken by Hubble Space Telescope

How far can we go?

If you’re like me, you get an eerie feeling in your stomach from just contemplating the vastness of the observable universe. .

In our strides to explore the universe with advances in space exploration, just how far can humanity ever hope to go?

The saddening truth is, not far at all. The question, answered by Kurzggesagt-In a Nutshell, explains how it’s space itself that’s holding us back from exploring any further than our local group of galaxies.

Our local group alone is 10 million light-years in diameter, containing the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, along with about 50 dwarf galaxies, but that only accounts for 0.00000000001 percent of the observable universe. So we are basically stranded in a very small area of the observable universe, but still conceivably large if one thinks about distances in light-years.

Kurzggesagt-In a Nutshell explains why humanity’s exploration is limited to only a small part of the universe:

Although our exploration of the universe might be limited, it’s worth remembering that humans haven’t even made it to Mars yet. Which still leaves us with plenty more to discover in our own solar system, galaxy, and eventually our local cluster of galaxies over billions of years.

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