This is pretty neat...

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I always find myself staring at the moon and wondering about things like that. That's intriguing to me.
 
Another mind blower...

Recent data shows that the Milky way may not be a traditional spiral galaxy like we all have been taught. It shows that our galaxy may be a 'barred' sprial.

We thought it looked like this:

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But in reality it may be like this:

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The Total Perspective Vortex is the most horrible torture device to which a sentient being can be subjected. Located on Frogstar World B, it shows its victim the entire unimaginable infinity of the universe with a very tiny marker that says "You Are Here" which points to a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot.

The machine was originally invented by one Trin Tragula in order to annoy his wife. Because she was forever nagging him for having no sense of proportion, he decided to invent something that would show her what having a sense of proportion really meant. Unfortunately the shock of being placed in the Vortex destroyed her brain, but Trin Tragula's grief was tempered by the knowledge that he had been right and she had been wrong. The Total Perspective Vortex had proved that in an infinite universe the one thing sentient life cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.

The machine produces a virtual reality model of the entire universe by means of the axiom that any piece of matter is affected by all other matter. The Vortex reconstructs the universe through computer processing of a high-resolution scan of a small object. In the words of the Hitchhiker's Guide,
"...since every piece of matter in the Universe is in someway affected by every other piece of matter in the Universe, it is in theory possible to extrapolate the whole of creation - every Galaxy, every sun, every planet, their orbits, their composition, and their economic and social history from, say, one small piece of fairy cake."

Only Zaphod Beeblebrox is reported to have survived the Vortex unscathed (and to then have eaten the small piece of fairy cake). When it showed him the "You Are Here" marker, Zaphod correctly interpreted the Vortex as simply telling him that he was the most important being in the universe. This is due to the fact that he entered the Vortex in an artificial universe, which had been specially created for his benefit (thus making him the most important being in it) by Zarniwoop - though some have noted the possibility that he has an ego the size of the universe ("Didn't I tell you baby? I'm Zaphod Beeblebrox! I'm the President of the Galaxy!"). After emerging from the artificial universes' Total Perspective Vortex, Zaphod ate the piece of fairy cake, saying "If I told you how much I needed this, I wouldn't have time to eat it."
 
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