Watch Our Story In One Minute, a mesmerizing tapestry of footage tracing the cosmic and biological origins of our species, all sewn together to the sounds of original music by MelodySheep. 

As you’ll read below, our friends over at Open Culture do a fantastic set-up to this amazing graphic novel-style story about Dark Matter — however I will add that if you love science, comics or anything inbetween, you will love this.

“We finally got the big announcement. After decades of work, physicists have pinned down the Higgs Boson. It’s a major milestone. But physicists at CERN won’t be left with nothing to do. The same folks at PhD Comics who gave us this helpful primer that uses animation to explain the Higgs Boson have also produced a companion video on Dark Matter, the mysterious stuff being researched by CERN scientists and their Large Hadron Collider.

In the clip above, physicists Daniel Whiteson and Jonathan Feng underscore how much of the universe remains dark to us. We understand about 5% of what makes up the cosmos. Another 75%, we call Dark Energy, the other 20%, Dark Matter, which are possibly manifestations of the same thing (or possibly not). Research on Higgs Boson will tell us something important about the origin of mass in the universe. But whether any of this will help explain Dark Matter (which accounts for most of the matter in the universe and behaves differently than the mass we understand — it neither emits nor absorbs light) — that’s another big question.”

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When Carl Sagan first spoke of the cosmos, he helped people wrap their brains around the idea through digestible facts, like “the nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars.” But it’s thought-provoking insights like “We are made of star stuff” that continue to create curiosity in this field.

In a time when people have an insatiable thirst for knowledge, Neil deGrasse Tyson is another profound storyteller who can spark imaginations.  As he tells the story of his calling to study the universe, you can’t help but feel something. Some would call it spiritual, others would call it religious and some would point to a connection with the universe. Whichever it maybe is for each person to determine. But what I can say is that this is quite possibly “The Greatest Science Sermon” ever.

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Looking to keep things in perspective? This absolutely incredible interactive infographic, Magnifying the Universe, should do the trick. Designer NumberSleuth has developed a beautiful illustration scaling over 100 items within the observable universe ranging from galaxies to insects, nebulae and stars to molecules and atoms.

And as the brains behind It’s Okay To Be Smart pointed out, “Remember: You aren’t insignificant. Nothing else on any scale (that we know of) has the power to define their place in ordered life quite like we do. We are powerful in the infinite powers of our minds.”

What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the universe?

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