This picture of the Horsehead Galaxy is one of my favorites; I used to ask my students to ponder the following data:

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  At the equator, the earth spins at 1000 mph.
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  The earth revolves around the sun at 18 miles per second.
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  The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second.
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  186,000 miles/second * 60 seconds/minute * 60 minutes/hour * 24 hours/day * 365 days/year = 5,865,696,000,000 miles in a light year
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  The sun is 26,000 light years from the center of the Milky Way galaxy, which is 80,000 to 120,000 light years across.
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  The closest star is Alpha Centauri, which is 4 light years away. If our sun were scaled down to the size of a period on a printed page, then the distance to Alpha Centauri would be about 8 miles away.
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  It takes our solar system 200-250 million years to orbit once around the Milky Way at 155 miles per second.
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  The Local Group is the cluster of galaxies to which we belong. It is a group of about 30 galaxies that is about 5 million light-years across. Within the Local Group, the Milky Way Galaxy is moving about 185 miles per second.

The students would just let their minds be blown for awhile--and then move on, as we all must. However, far from making our tiny lives seem meaningless, the idea that we participate in this cosmic dance is amazing. Timothy Ferris is one of my favorite astronomers; in THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE he says:

What is there about the human mind that so resonates with the rest of the universe that we’re able to understand anything about workings of nature on the larger scale? Every scrap of matter and energy in our blood and bones and in the synapses of our thoughts can trace its lineage back to the origin of the universe…. As the Koran puts it, the universe is as close as the veins of our necks. The evolution of the universe goes on not just around us but within us. Our thoughts and feelings, after all, are part of the universe, too, and its story is our story as well.