Below is a photograph taken by the Hubble Telescope that shows about ten thousand galaxies in a very tiny patch of the sky.  It would take about 18,000,000 of these patches to cover the entire sky.  If this sample is typical there are about 180 billion galaxies in the whole universe and about 123 quintillion stars.  For all we know, there are no other people in all this daunting immensity. 

Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2014

I thought that it would be nice if instead of seeing this vast wilderness of mindless stars we could have seen something more friendly like bluebirds.

ultra deep field with bluebirds

Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter.   It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—“God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”

― Kurt Vonnegut