Glossary

Imagine this vast spacescape: The galaxies of gigantic size are just like tiny particles of dust floating in the air. Rest of the space is void! In each of these galaxies, there are at least millions of stars. This  means the number of stars in the universe are more than the total number of grains of sand on the Earth! Again, these huge stars are very far away from each other; and in between, there is only vacuum! One ordinary star among them is our Sun, with small spheres of rocks and gases moving around it. One of them, a rather small one is bestowed with life – beings which respond to their environment, grow, reproduce and even have consciousness!

We human beings, in our current form, came into existence about 2 million (10⁶) years ago, But the Earth formed over 4 billion (10⁹) years ago, and the the Sun is burning for last the 4.6 billion years. But this is nothing compared to the age of the Universe, which is estimated at 14 billion years. These scales of time and space are hard to imagine! But this is certain, that our existence in this universe is insignificant! Then what makes us so important and glorious? Well, different things give meaning to our lives. Sometimes, it could be our caring for loved ones, sometimes it is creating something new, and sometimes, most certainly, it is solving the mysteries of the universe!