If you were to take all matter in the universe. Every planet, star, black hole, pulsar, supergiant and speck of dust, and put it into a cube, that's around the density of our sun. Which by the way, pretty dense. How much universe would this "everything cube" take up? Well about zero point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero four two percent of the universe. The rest is, well. I'm leaving dark matter out of this until we know what the ♥♥♥♥ that is. Like it has mass right? But you can't see it, or touch it. My dumb monkey brain interprets that to be empty space, and I refuse to acknowledge this black magic ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I use Wallpaper Engine because I have one of those embarrassing, expensive, rainbow man-child computers. Wallpaper Engine is a repository of live wallpapers that users create, and share, for other computer users. So ya, you know, porn, most of it is porn. Some of it is really great though. I don't think I'll ever stop being impressed with how creative internet randos can be. And how horny they can be some of this ♥♥♥♥ sickens me. Go to church. When you look up "space" on Wallpaper Engine, you get things like this, and this, and this. These things are not space. This isn't space, this isn't space, this certainly isn't space and this is porn again. The best of these wallpapers is recording of Earth as viewed from low Earth orbit. But this isn't space, is it? The camera is sorta pointing the wrong way. It's as beautiful as it is, the exact opposite of what I had typed in. I want to show you my second favorite image ever, and I'm sure you've seen it before. This is Earthrise. Taken from Apollo Eight during Christmas Eve, nineteen sixty-eight. The camera is still pointing the wrong way, but from a bit further back you can see space. And you can see there's not much to see. Can I show you my all-time favorite image ever? This is Pale Blue Dot. Taken from the Voyager One probe following the completion of its mission to Saturn on February fourteenth, nineteen ninety. The camera is still pointing the wrong way, but I think this is good enough. Thinking of space, true space, outer space, is a lot like thinking about death, in that the human brain really struggles to comprehend it. You can get close, like your mind can brush the surface of it, but can you really grasp, non-existence? All you've ever done, is exist. Infinite nothingness, is something that cannot be truly grasped, and judging from the Wallpaper Engine options, I don't think we really want to. There is a reason why the farther back the camera goes, the more unsettling the photo becomes. It goes from beautiful, to surreal, to anxiety inducing. Space is not this, it is not this. It is not Sandra Bullock running into space station after space station through impossible luck. It is not asteroid belts, thrillingly dense with obstacles. It is not artificially colored images of nebulas that are in reality, just white clouds of gas. And it is not incredibly bangable blue aliens. Why are they always blue? It is an infinite nothing. An empty everything, that we are suspended in. I think often about the Tesla launched into space by child labor exploiter, Musk. He remarked that, "You can tell it's real, because it looks so fake, honestly." There's something about the reality of what space is that strikes us as, uncanny. We have, in countless stories, filled space with everything but what it is, empty space. This is fitting of course, things need to happen in a story. Stories are comforting. Not all the time but almost always and space is everything but comforting. I think while we may prefer to not acknowledge this grand and terrible abyss we find ourselves trapped in, I think it's important to keep in mind, that we are alone. Together. In the void. Thanks for watching. And living in this nightmare with me.