We all have a street address, a familiar set of coordinates that pins our location on a city map. But what is our cosmic address? Where do we fit in the grand, sprawling map of the universe? Embarking on this journey of scale, from our home to the largest structures known to science, is one of the most profound and perspective-altering experiences one can have. It’s an exercise in humility, wonder, and ultimately, connection.

This guide will serve as your tour bus on a grand voyage, zooming out step by step from our familiar planetary home to the very edge of the observable universe. Fasten your seatbelt; the sense of scale might give you vertigo.

Stop 1: Planet Earth

Our journey begins on solid ground, on a beautiful but lonely sphere of rock and water orbiting a star. Earth is about 12,742 kilometers (7,918 miles) in diameter. For most of human history, this was the entire known universe. Today, we know it's just our starting point, our precious and singular home base in a vast cosmic ocean.

Cosmic Address so far: Earth

Stop 2: The Solar System

Zooming out, we see Earth is not alone. It’s the third of eight planets orbiting a star we call the Sun. The Solar System is a vast disk of planets, moons, asteroids, and comets, all bound by the Sun’s gravity. Its scale is already hard to fathom. If the Sun were the size of a grapefruit in New York City, Earth would be a pinhead about 15 meters away, and the outermost planet, Neptune, would be another grapefruit in San Francisco. The true edge is the Oort Cloud, a theoretical sphere of icy bodies that extends nearly a light-year away from the Sun.

Cosmic Address so far: Earth, Solar System

Stop 3: Our Stellar Neighborhood

Our Sun is just one star among billions. As we pull back further, the entire Solar System shrinks to a single point of light. We are now in what astronomers call the Local Interstellar Cloud, a wisp of gas and dust about 30 light-years across that our Sun is currently passing through. This cloud is part of a larger, mostly empty cavity called the Local Bubble, a 300-light-year-wide region carved out by ancient supernova explosions. Within this neighborhood, we find our closest stellar companions, like the Alpha Centauri system (4.2 light-years away) and Sirius (8.6 light-years away).

Cosmic Address so far: Earth, Solar System, Local Interstellar Cloud

Stop 4: The Milky Way Galaxy

This is a truly breathtaking leap in scale. Our stellar neighborhood is just an insignificant speck within a colossal, swirling city of stars: the Milky Way Galaxy. Our galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy, a flattened disk of about 200-400 billion stars, stretching 100,000 light-years from end to end. Our Solar System is located in a minor spiral arm called the Orion-Cygnus Arm, about 26,000 light-years from the galactic center, where a supermassive black hole named Sagittarius A* resides. To think of it another way: if the Milky Way were the size of North America, our entire Solar System would fit inside a coffee cup.

Cosmic Address so far: Earth, Solar System, Orion Arm, Milky Way Galaxy

Stop 5: The Local Group

As we continue our journey outward, our magnificent home galaxy begins to look like a single, glowing pinwheel. We see that it, too, has neighbors. The Milky Way is one of the two largest members of a small cluster of galaxies called the Local Group. This group contains over 50 galaxies and spans about 10 million light-years of space. Our biggest neighbor is the Andromeda Galaxy, a slightly larger spiral galaxy about 2.5 million light-years away. Andromeda and the Milky Way are on a collision course, destined to merge in about 4.5 billion years to form a new, larger galaxy some have nicknamed "Milkomeda."

Cosmic Address so far: Earth, Solar System, Orion Arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group

Stop 6: The Virgo Supercluster

Even our Local Group is not adrift on its own. It's just a small, suburban outpost of a much larger cosmic metropolis. As we zoom out further, we see that the Local Group is part of a massive collection of galaxy groups and clusters called the Virgo Supercluster. This immense structure is about 110 million light-years in diameter and contains at least 100 galaxy groups and clusters. At its heart lies the Virgo Cluster, a dense collection of over 1,300 galaxies. All the galaxies in our supercluster, including our own, are being pulled by gravity toward a central point called the Great Attractor.

Cosmic Address so far: Earth, Solar System, Orion Arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo Supercluster

Stop 7: The Laniakea Supercluster and the Cosmic Web

For a long time, the Virgo Supercluster seemed to be our largest home structure. But in 2014, scientists redefined its boundaries. They realized that the Virgo Supercluster is just one arm of an even grander structure, which they named the Laniakea Supercluster (from the Hawaiian for "immeasurable heaven"). Laniakea is a staggering 520 million light-years across and contains about 100,000 galaxies. Zooming out even further, we see that these superclusters are not isolated blobs. They are the bright nodes in a vast, filamentary structure that permeates the entire universe, known as the Cosmic Web. The universe on the largest scales looks like a sponge, with long filaments of galaxies surrounding vast, mostly empty voids.

Cosmic Address so far: Earth, Solar System, Orion Arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo Supercluster, Laniakea Supercluster

Final Stop: The Observable Universe

This is the edge of what we can see, the final stop on our tour. The Observable Universe is a sphere centered on us, with a diameter of about 93 billion light-years. The "observable" limit exists because the universe is about 13.8 billion years old, and light from any object beyond this boundary has not had enough time to reach us yet. What lies beyond is unknown—it could be more of the same, stretching on infinitely, or something else entirely. The Observable Universe contains at least two trillion galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars.

Final Cosmic Address: Earth, Solar System, Orion Arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo Supercluster, Laniakea Supercluster, The Observable Universe.

This cosmic perspective is a gift of modern science. It connects us to the grandest story of all—the story of the universe—and reminds us that, while we may be small, we are a part of something truly magnificent.