Every time when I see this picture I am amazed.
The pillars are some 4 light years long. 4 light years...
If you are wondering about how large this is, think about our nearest star Alpha Centauri. It is also about 4 light years away from us. Now, that probably didn't help very much because we can't even imagine how big that distance is. We literally can't compare it to anything meaningful.
It takes the light of the sun about 8 minutes to reach the earth. 8 minutes...
So if you imagine that beam traveling for another 3 years 364 days 23 hours and 52 minutes, you'd get a distance of 4 light years.
Perhaps we just can't imagine such a thing. But what I think everybody feels when thinking about this is awe and humility.
Can we truly say that we have discovered most things about life and our universe? Can we truly think that we are some sort of pinnacle in the evolutionary stream?
It is important to ask these questions once in a while in order to not lose sight of the grand scale of things that exist beyond our selves. It is important to question the nature of thought and our tools of inquiry if we want to discover the world around us.