We Are Stardust...
Our universe is 13 billion years old - the earth has been here for 4.5 billion years, the tallest mountain from the sea floor - MaunaKea for 1 million years, and humans less than 200,000 years. Our life expectancy is close to 100 years which is less than a blink in cosmic time. Billions of years from now, our sun will expand into a red giant incinerating earth and erasing all evidence of our existence. As the universe continues to expand there will be smaller and smaller stars being born (more like that of our sun and less like those capable of supernova explosions) as the supply of gas needed for star formation will be exhausted. Eventually, fewer and fewer stars will be born and so fewer solar systems and opportunities for life to exist. Billions and billions of years into the future, looking up at the sky you would only see blackness. The universe is destined to be a very lonely place. We are in the golden age of the universe right now - what an opportunity to be able to see what’s out there while the light from the stars of the past can still reach us... :)