Possibly the most daring piece of modern science is the attempt to predict the patterns that galaxies make in the sky. The bold starting point is a statement on what the universe was like at a time when the entire visible universe was compressed into something the size of a beach ball.
That idea takes some getting used to.
For starters, the notion that the entire visible universe could even fit into something as small as a beach ball is little short of mind-blowing. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the visible universe, our Milky Way being just one of them, and each one typically contains several hundred billion stars.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.