The universe is a boundless expanse that has long captivated human imagination with its awe-inspiring wonders. Awe is a feeling of reverence, wonder, and amazement brought about by encountering something grand, vast, or infinitely complex. It evokes a sense of connection to something much larger than ourselves and expands our understanding of existence. The following facts about space showcase the extraordinary scale, enigmatic phenomena, and unimaginable forces at play in the cosmos, providing a glimpse into the awe-inspiring marvels that fill the heavens and stir the depths of human curiosity.

1. The observable universe is approximately 93 billion light-years in diameter. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, which is about 9.461 trillion kilometers (5.878 trillion miles).
2. There are an estimated 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe, each containing billions to trillions of stars.
3. The largest known star, UY Scuti, is about 1,700 times larger than our Sun. If placed in our solar system, its outer layers would extend beyond the orbit of Jupiter.
4. Neutron stars are the remnants of massive stars that have undergone a supernova explosion. They are incredibly dense, with a mass around 1.4 times that of the Sun but a radius of only about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). A sugar-cube-sized piece of neutron star material would weigh about as much as a mountain.
5. Black holes are regions in space where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape from them. The largest known black hole, TON 618, has a mass 66 billion times that of our Sun.
6. The Milky Way, our home galaxy, is on a collision course with the Andromeda galaxy. The two galaxies are expected to merge in about 4.5 billion years, creating a new, larger galaxy.
7. The cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation is a remnant of the Big Bang. It's a faint glow of light that fills the universe and is almost uniform in all directions, providing strong evidence for the theory of cosmic inflation.
8. Dark matter and dark energy are mysterious, unseen components of the universe that together make up about 95% of its total mass-energy content. Despite extensive research, their true nature remains unknown.
9. The Voyager 1 spacecraft, launched in 1977, is the most distant human-made object from Earth. It entered interstellar space in 2012 and continues to send data back to Earth as it travels further into the cosmos.
10. The speed of light is the ultimate speed limit in the universe, approximately 299,792 kilometers per second (186,282 miles per second). No known object or information can travel faster than the speed of light.