Samuel Arbesman, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, was recently rereading Carl Sagan’s Contact wherein the famous scientist alludes to some sort of “cosmic Grand Central Station.” Inspired by the concept, Arbesman decided to combine it with his longtime love of transit maps to create the image that you see above. In his own words,
“This map is an attempt to approach our galaxy with a bit more familiarity than usual and get people thinking about long-term possibilities in outer space. Hopefully it can provide as a useful shorthand for our place in the Milky Way, the ‘important’ sights, and make inconceivable distances a bit less daunting. And while convenient interstellar travel is nothing more than a murky dream, and might always be that way, there is power in creating tools for beginning to wrap our minds around the interconnections of our galactic neighborhood.”
Want to feel really tiny and insignificant? We’re Sol. Yep, that stop on the Orion line with no transfers. Is it sad that we’re trying to figure out where we’d find Pandora on here? [via Gizmodo]