Visualize a model of all of time, where our lives span less than the width of a human hair

Building the solar system to scale in the Nevada desert

On a dry lakebed in Nevada, a group of friends build the first scale model of the solar system with complete planetary orbits: a true illustration of our planet's humble position in space.

Explore our favorite visualization of the immense scale of space, from an astronaut to the size of the observable universe

Charting 4,000 years of human history

Care to hang all of human history on your wall? This data visualization charts 4,000 years of humanity. This "histomap" was originally published in 1931 and sold for $1 per copy of the 5-foot-long chart. It was said to detail the course of...

An animation illustrating the enormity of the universe

Look around you. Where are you? Where is this place you are occupying? Somewhere in a room, maybe in a city on a continent on a planet orbiting a star in a galaxy among billions. But… where is all of that?

Visualizing the built world compared to the natural world

In the last century, humans have covered the Earth in 1,300 metric gigatons of built material, known as technomass. That amount is more than the Earth's entire biomass at 1,100 GT, which includes all living organisms. To get a sense of the scale of this comparison, click through this striking, simple visualization showcasing the various organisms comprising biomass as well as the materials making up the technomass.

Watch 1 billion years of tectonic plate movement in 40 seconds

Researchers at the University of Sydney developed the model, incorporating changing plate boundaries rather than just moving continents, to better understand the changes to biological and climatic systems throughout Earth’s history.

Visualizing the world's population centers

What does population density look like on a global scale? These detailed 3D renders illustrate our biggest urban areas and highlight population trends.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

How people imagine a calendar year

It turns out everybody imagines the abstract calendar year in a simple, concrete way, though there are surprising differences between the exact model and shape of each image. Dive into one writer's collection of tens of thousands of questionnaire responses showing the fascinating consistency and divergence of how people visualize time.

One model of the universe expresses all constants using only time

About seven base units, such as meters for length, have historically been used to describe everything in our physical reality. However, researchers have shown that, through relativistic space-time, clocks can serve as replacements for rulers, scales, and other instruments, allowing everything to be measured in terms of time.

Explore a visualization of curved spacetime under general relativity

While depictions involving bends in elastic fabrics are common to illustrate gravity, they are circular representations that rely on gravity in the real world to depict gravity in the model. The river model instead shows how bends in spacetime convert speed through time into speed through space, producing acceleration.

Scale models show the intricacy of WWI trench warfare

Every inch of these models of WWI soldiers in the trenches is crafted with amazing details, right down to the real-life letters written to home.

Watch visualization of different-sized asteroid impacts

The animations range from a 4-meter-wide asteroid that would burn up in the atmosphere with the impact of 0.6 Hiroshima nuclear bombs to a 940-kilometer asteroid the size of the dwarf planet Ceres, which would produce a mass extinction event.

View a simulation of the dark matter filaments that make up the cosmic web

The distribution of matter in the universe is not uniform, with interconnected threads of galaxy clusters surrounded by voids of empty space. Simulations of the universe show this is only possible within 13.8 billion years—the universe's age—if a foundational network of seeds—dark matter halos—were present to gravitationally attract visible matter.

See how CES comes to life with a massive setup across Las Vegas

This behind-the-scenes video shows crews assembling the sprawling CES show—filling more than 2.5 million square feet of exhibition space with booths, lights, and tech from around the world ahead of the event’s opening.

Visualizing the history of Saturn and its rings

Every 13 to 16 years, Saturn's rings become far less visible because its plane becomes exactly even with Earth's. This visual-rich essay explores the history of humanity's perception of Saturn, from Galileo's first sighting (and dubbing the rings "ears") to the idea that the rings won't last more than a few hundred millions years more. Explore this fascinating planet here.

Our favorite visualization of the depths of the ocean and the various animals species within it

Explore Stonehenge up close with photos and a 3D model

This Google Arts & Culture gallery brings Stonehenge into sharp focus through Life magazine archives, Getty Images, and a rotatable Google Earth model—plus a virtual tour that is close enough to spot lichen on the 30-foot sarsen stones.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

Visualize ancient Rome in 3D with this aerial view

Researchers have compiled meticulous representations of ancient Rome in this video game-like depiction of the Eternal City from the air. For eight minutes, viewers can take in what Rome looked like two millennia ago, from the terracotta-topped homes to the Forum and Colosseum.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

Visualizing the AI investment wave

This data visualization from Reuters shows how massive AI investment has become by December 2025—revealing that, in today’s dollars, spending has surpassed the combined total of the Apollo program and the Manhattan Project.

See how each of the more than two million known species relates to each other—and to common ancestors—in this zoomable tree of life.

View a sample of the bioluminescent tree of life

This diagram shows 42 different light-producing organisms, from bacteria and fungi to worms, fish, and crustaceans. It illustrates how the ability to produce light has appeared multiple times across the tree of life, rather than stemming from a single ancestor.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

Explore different living beings' sizes, from DNA to whales and the Pando clone

The Pando is actually a single organism in Utah, comprising more than 47,000 stems connected by a vast root system. It spans roughly 108 acres. Meanwhile, the average human stands at 5 feet and 7 inches. DNA, the genetic instructions for life, stands at a height of 3.5 nanometers.

An overview of atomic composition, scale, and structure, which is almost all 'empty' space

It takes about 500,000 carbon atoms lined up next to one another to span the thickness of human hair, and over 99.9994% of the mass of each is contained in the nucleus. About 99.999999999999% of an atom's volume lies outside this nucleus, where electrons exist in clouds of probability. Removing these clouds, the Empire State Building would be the size of a rice grain.

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

A fictional glimpse into the future of AR

Hyper-Reality is a project that presents a provocative and kaleidoscopic new vision of the future, where physical and virtual realities have merged, and the city is saturated in media. Watch this six-minute video to experience the vision.

This Milky Way photo took 12 years to shoot

Finnish astrophotographer J-P Metsavainio has released a Milky Way photo that took him nearly 12 years to create. The 1.7-gigapixel image has a cumulative

Memento Movi

Have you ever wanted life to be a little more like a movie? This somewhat absurd website shows you how far along you are in life, if your life was an actual film. Enter your birthday, how long you expect to live (using your best judgment!), and pick a film. The site will show you where you are in life—if your life was, say, "Inception" or "Wicked." A little silly, we know.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

Learn how your body is, scientifically, like a firework with its own slow, controlled burn.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

Visualize how CRISPR-Cas9—a type of immune system used by single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses—targets and makes precise changes to a gene's DNA.

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by over 1.5 million Muslims.

Apeirophobia is an overwhelming fear of living forever, perhaps stemming from the brain's inability to conceptualize an infinite life.

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

Waves off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal, can reach over 100 feet and are caused by the area's deep underwater canyon geography

In 1945, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and legendary animator Walt Disney began collaborating on a short film that was not completed until 2003, years after both men had died.

The Great Salt Lake's distinct dual coloration results from high-salinity organisms that only live in the northern portion and produce a purple protein.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight