My god, it's full of stars

The European Southern Observatory just released a remarkable image: a deep field view of a speck of the sky (one half-millionth of the total sky).

So count every spot of light in the image, multiply by 500,000 for an approximation of the total number of galaxies in the observable universe, and multiply for another 100,000,000,000 for the total number of stars.

As Arthur C. Clarke said, “Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”

And, as Douglas Adams said, "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."

The original photo is huge--some 79MB and 27 million pixels--but there smaller versions available. Phil Plait's take on it is excellent, as always.