On the 14th February 1990, NASA decided to shutdown the cameras on Voyager 1 to save energy. Carl Sagan, the well known scientist, begged NASA to take final images with the onboard cameras and NASA agreed. The final 64 images taken included the famous "Blue Dot" image, shown above, of the Earth viewed from a distance of 3.7 billion miles with the glare of the distant sun obvious in the lower part of the photo. The Earth comprises a single pixel on the photo!

Douglas Adams wrote in the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy “Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.” so, here are some mind boggling statistics to reflect on...

1. Earth–Moon System

Distance: 384,400 km (238,855 miles)
Orbital Speed: 1.022 km/s (0.635 miles/s) ≈ 3,679 km/h (2,286 mph)
Light Travel Time: ~1.28 seconds

2. Earth–Sun Orbit

Distance: 149.6 million km (92.96 million miles)
Speed: 29.78 km/s (18.5 miles/s) ≈ 107,200 km/h (66,600 mph)
Light Travel Time: ~8 minutes 20 seconds

3. Sun’s Orbit Around the Galaxy

Distance to Galactic Centre: ~26,700 light-years
Speed: 220 km/s (137 miles/s) ≈ 792,000 km/h (492,000 mph)
Orbital Period: ~225–250 million years

4. Nearest Star: Proxima Centauri

Distance: ~4.24 light-years ≈ 40 trillion km (25 trillion miles)
Relative Speed: ~22.2 km/s (13.8 miles/s)
Light Travel Time: ~4.24 years

6. Milky Way and Andromeda Collision

Distance: ~2.54 million light-years
Approach Speed: 110 km/s (68.4 miles/s)
Time to Merge: ~4.5 billion years

10. Theoretical Realms: Multiverse

Cosmic Inflation: ~10⁻³⁶ seconds after Big Bang, exponential expansion
Bubble Universes: Regions of space undergoing independent inflation
Quantum Multiverse: All outcomes exist in parallel

No distances or speeds here — these concepts lie outside our measurable spacetime.

11. Grand Summary Table

System	Distance (Metric)	Distance (Imperial)	Speed
Earth–Moon	384,400 km	238,855 miles	1.022 km/s (2,286 mph)
Earth–Sun	149.6 million km	92.96 million miles	29.78 km/s (66,600 mph)
Sun–Galactic Centre	~2.5 × 10¹⁷ km	1.57 × 10¹⁷ miles	220 km/s (492,000 mph)
Proxima Centauri	~40 trillion km	25 trillion miles	22.2 km/s (49,680 mph)
Andromeda Galaxy	~2.4 quintillion km	~1.5 quintillion miles	110 km/s (246,000 mph)
Virgo Cluster	~614 quintillion km	~382 quintillion miles	600 km/s (1.34 million mph)
Observable Universe	~4.4 × 10²³ km	~2.7 × 10²³ miles	> light speed (expansion)
Estimated Total Universe	~2.2 × 10²⁵ km	~1.35 × 10²⁵ miles	Unknown
Multiverse	∞	∞	Outside measurable spacetime

Orbiting Outward: From the Moon to Beyond the Observable Universe...

Distances and Speeds from Local to Ultimate — in Metric and Imperial Units

1. Earth–Moon System

2. Earth–Sun Orbit

3. Sun’s Orbit Around the Galaxy

4. Nearest Star: Proxima Centauri

5. Solar Motion Through Local Space

6. Milky Way and Andromeda Collision

7. Virgo Cluster and Supercluster Motion

8. Observable Universe

9. Beyond the Observable

10. Theoretical Realms: Multiverse

11. Grand Summary Table