Where do you live? Your home or your school has an address: a street, a city or town, and a country. When someone wants to send you a letter, they give your address, so that your mail carrier knows the letter should go to you. For example, the address of the astronomy building at Johns Hopkins University is:
Question 1. What is your school’s address?
3701 San Martin Drive Baltimore, MD 21218 United States of America
But does this address really describe where you are? Imagine extending the address out to bigger and bigger divisions, until it becomes a “cosmic address” that includes your continent, planet, galaxy, and universe. So the “cosmic address” of the Johns Hopkins astronomy building would be:
3701 San Martin Drive Baltimore, MD 21218 United States of America North America Earth The Solar System The Milky Way Galaxy The Universe
Question 2. What is your school’s cosmic address?
The last step of the cosmic address is the largest division: the universe. The universe is actually everything and everywhere. Every star and every galaxy we see is part of the same universe. The universe is a really big place!
Just how big is the universe? Click Next to find out.