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Here's Your Daily Video Reminder That We're Tiny and Insignificant

A new animated video shows that it would take 7.5 million people laid head-to-toe to wrap around planet Earth—and that's just a drop in the bucket.

Most days we have a vague, existential dread that we're all insignificant specks in an uncaring universe where nothing we do really matters, but this succinct, smart, and stunning animated video by Yukai Du explains exactly why.

The Guangzhou-born, London-based animator matched audio from a TED-Ed lecture by Professor Alex Hofeldt, who explains how the Hubble Telescope shows us how large the universe really is. "On the scale of a galaxy, let a lone a universe, we're smaller than we can readily comprehend," he says in the video.

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GIF via Vimeo

Yukai, a Central Saint Martins grad, has made editorial illustrations, GIFs, and videos for clients ranging from Adobe Systems to and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to The New York Times and WIRED. She has been featured in film and illustration festivals like Illustrated in Germany, Annecy International Film Festival in France, the UK's World Illustration Awards, and the American International Motion Art Awards.

Her prowess is evident in the new video. Each frame's balance of color, motion, and rhythm furthers understanding of the concepts Hofeldt lays out. Watch How small are we in the scale of the universe? below now.

See storyboards and learn more about the creation of How small are we in the scale of the universe? here. Check out more of Yukai Du's work on her website.

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