When I stare up at the sky at night, through the smog and light pollution I see part of the vast cosmos laid out before me.

The insignificance of our lives becomes apparent when placed alongside the birth and death of stars and galaxies.

I discovered something last week, something I’d never seen advertised. Google Earth 4.2 introduced a Sky watching section that gives users a freedom to explore the cosmos with extraordinary detail. The majority of images probably come from ground telescopes, stitched together in a patchwork of very detailed imagery. There are many images from the Hubble telescope placed on top of these at the right distance and position that let you zoom right in to the spectacular views of the various nebulae captured by Hubble.

This tool provides a great tool for anyone interested in space to get access to the night sky without the need of an expensive telescope, and warm in the comfort of our houses.

I’m glad to see that some of the money earned by google is going to things that are for the good of the public.

The vastness, the sheer number of galaxies and the number of stars that must be in each one, and the possible planets circling those suns.

Are we a freak occurrence in a blink of the universal eye or is life not as rare as we imagine? How did the building blocks of life, the enzymes that form DNA come together in such a way as to mark the difference between that which is alive and that which is inanimate?

We might never find out.