I never fully grasped the true scale of a single galaxy (and then expanded that understanding to the observable universe) until I hopped in my ship in Elite Dangerous and actually set off to cross one. Holy fucking shit, does it really help put it into perspective when you’re traveling between vast galactic arms, hopping individual stars 50-70 Ly at a time and trying your damndest not to stretch yourself too thin in fear of running out of scoopable fuel/stars.

If I were an Astronomy teacher, Elite would be my most profound and precious tool.

You really should eat that banana before it goes bad. I see spots on it and one area looks soft and bruised.

‘banana for scale’ is 12 years old now

This would be funnier if there were a gigantic banana floating in space

You got me. I leaned in to find the banana.

Hey! Why’s that koala smiling?

This reminds me of an Italo Calvino short story about a guy doing backyard telescope observatory space viewing (whew) and he spots someone holding a sign on a distant star stating “I know what you did”. The viewer now starts calculating exactly where he would have been at the time including light speed and distance light travels to reach him and all sorts of other calcs until he determines the time in the past and finally realizes “Whoa! He saw that!?”.