The vastness of our universe allows us a glimpse of the might and majesty of our Creator. Philip Yancey gives the following description to help us appreciate the scale of that universe:

If the Milky Way galaxy were the size of the entire continent of North America, our solar system would fit in a coffee cup. Voyager 1 was launched on Sept. 5, 1977 — about two weeks after its twin Voyager 2 — and as of October 2023 is approximately 14.9 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) away from our planet, making it Earth's farthest spacecraft. Voyager 1 is currently zipping through space at around 38,000 mph (17 kilometers per second), according to NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Light takes 22 hours, 25 minutes and 4.6155 seconds to travel from Voyager 1 and arrive to us.

Yet this vast neighborhood of our sun—in truth, the size of a coffee cup—fits along with several hundred billion other stars and their minions in the Milky Way, one of perhaps 100 billion such galaxies in the universe. To send a light-speed message to the edge of that universe would take 15 billion years.

Editor’s Note: Astronomical information was updated 10/2023