This horizontally-oriented logarithmic map of the Universe shows how, from left-to-right, we go from Earth-sized scales to the largest cosmic distances of all. As spectacular as this logarithmic view is, it “only” spans about 20 orders of magnitude: from the size of the Earth to the size of the present-day cosmic horizon. (Credit: Pablo Carlos Budassi)

This logarithmic view of the Universe will absolutely blow your mind

As we look to larger cosmic scales, we get a broader view of the expansive cosmic forest, eventually revealing the grandest views of all.

It’s a long way from planet Earth to the Universe’s edge.

Artist’s logarithmic scale conception of the observable universe. The Solar System gives way to the Milky Way, which gives way to nearby galaxies which then give way to the large-scale structure and the hot, dense plasma of the Big Bang at the outskirts. Each line-of-sight that we can observe contains all of these epochs, but the quest for the most distant observed object will not be complete until we’ve mapped out the entire Universe. (Credit: Pablo Carlos Budassi)

Our tiny home world, seemingly massive, is merely 12,742 km (7,917 miles) across.

This image, taken from the International Space Station by astronaut Karen Nyberg in 2013, shows the two largest islands on the southern part of the Mascarene Plateau: Réunion, in the foreground, and Mauritius, partially covered by clouds. To see a human on Earth from the altitude of the ISS, a telescope the size of Hubble would be needed. The scale of a human is less than 1/5,000,000 the scale of Earth, but Earth is just a proverbial drop in the cosmic ocean, with a diameter of only a little over 10,000 kilometers. (Credit: NASA/Karen Nyberg)

We typically think linearly: where the Sun is ~10,000 times farther away than Earth’s diameter.

The orbits of the planets in the inner Solar System aren’t exactly circular, but they’re quite close, with Mercury and Mars having the biggest departures and the greatest ellipticities. At these “to scale” distance scales, the indiviual planets, as well as even the Sun, take up only a single pixel. In many ways, a linear scale is a poor choice for depicting the depths of space. (Credit: NASA/JPL)

But cosmically, logarithmic scales — where each multiplicative factor of “10” defines another mark on our cosmic ruler — serve us far better.