View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-small-are-we-in-the-scale-of-the-universe-alex-hofeldt

In 1995, scientists pointed the Hubble Telescope at an area of the sky near the Big Dipper. The location was apparently empty, and the whole endeavor was risky – what, if anything, was going to show up? But what came back was nothing short of spectacular: an image of over 1,500 galaxies glimmering in a tiny sliver of the universe. Alex Hofeldt helps us understand the scale of this image.

Lesson by Alex Hofeldt, animation by Bliink.

Hubble Deep Field Image Credit: R. Williams (STScI), the Hubble Deep Field Team, and NASA.