BBC Future

How big is space?

Big questions demand big answers.

And here at Future we have a hard time thinking of a question bigger than: how big is space?

So, we set about trying to illustrate it.

The resulting picture is so large that we could not squeeze it all on to one image in Photoshop. Instead, we had to create several sections and stitch them together for you.

Printed out, the graphic spans 27 pages of A4 paper.

But even at this size we only managed to get to the edge of our Solar System – known as the heliosphere.

Yet even within this relatively small corner of space, there is a lot packed in there.

What is the most distant man-made object? What is the farthest travelled by a human being? What is the farthest travelled by a piece of Lego? And perhaps most importantly – how long would these journeys take if you were a passenger on the Starship Enterprise?

Scroll (and scroll... and scroll) through our monster graphic to explore our cosmic neighbourhood.

And if you want to check out the data we used to construct it, you can find it here.

If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on Future, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.

UPDATE: The graphic was updated on 17 October 2012 to add Felix Baumgartner’s record-breaking skydive.

BBC © 2013 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.

This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.