This page should give you a rough idea as to just how big our universe really is.
The Solar System
The minimum distances of our Moon, Sun and the planets from Earth;-
| Moon 222,000 miles |  |
| Venus 25,000,000 miles |  |
| Mars 35,000,000 miles |  |
| Mercury 48,000,000 miles |  |
| Sun 91,000,000 miles |  |
| Jupiter 365,000,000 miles |  |
| Saturn 746,000,000 miles |  |
| Uranus 1,600,000,000 miles |  |
| Neptune 2,680,000,000 miles |  |
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Pluto 2,600,000,000 miles The maximum distance is far greater than Neptune as Pluto has a highly elliptical orbit. |
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Distances of a few of the objects in our galaxy to Earth;-
It takes light just eight minutes to reach us from our Sun. To give you a rough idea of scale light takes 1,500 years to reach us from The Orion Nebula (pictured below), and that's still well within our own galaxy.
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The Orion Nebula (M42) 1,500 light years |
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The Horsehead Nebula and Flame Nebula 1,500 light years
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The Veil Nebula 2,000 light years |
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The Ring Nebula (M57) 2,300 light years |
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The Crab Nebula (M1) 6,500 light years |
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Pillars of Creation 7,000 light years |
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The Double Cluster (NGC869 and NGC884) 7,000 light years |
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The Great Cluster (M13) 21,000 light years |
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M2 Cluster 40,000 light years |
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Distances of a few objects outside our own galaxy to Earth;-
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The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) 2,400,000 light years |
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Bode's Galaxy (M81) 11,800,000 light years |
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The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) 23,000,000 light years |
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The Sombrero Galaxy (M104) 29,000,000 light years |
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M49 Galaxy 72,000,000 light years |
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Stephan's Quintet (5 galaxies) 270,000,000 light years |
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The Coma Cluster of galaxies (over 1000 galaxies) 300,000,000 light years |
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Hercules Galaxy Cluster (about 300 galaxies) 500,000,000 |
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Corona Borealis Galaxy Cluster (over 400 galaxies) 1,000,000,000 light years (1 billion) |
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3C 273 Quasar 2,000,000,000 light years (2 billion) |
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Hubble Deep Field Image 10,000 galaxies ranging from 2,500,000,000 light years to 10,500,000,000 light years (10.5 billion) |
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Gamma Ray Burst (GRB 080913) 12,800,000,000 light years (12.8 billion) |
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Galaxy IOK-1 12,880,000,000 light years (12.88 billion) |
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GRB 090423 13,035,000,000 (13.035 billion) This image was taken in April 2009 and is the farthest object ever recorded. |
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Light travels at 186,282 miles per second. As I mentioned earlier, light only takes eight minutes to reach us from our Sun. The light from the gamma ray burst 090423 has taken 13,035,000,000 years to reach us.