"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space." --Douglas Adams
Not to nit-pick but I believe it's "I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space". "Drug store" is a decidedly American phrase.
When books get released in other countries they go through and change many of these locale specific things, at least they do when it's going UK -> US, I think it's less common the other way because we're already so exposed to their culture.
It's interesting to me how dramatic music always tends to accompany this subject. Whether you prefer the religious or secular variety, I think it's safe to say there's something universally spiritual about visualizing the universe.
That's pretty cool. It reminds me of an old movie about orders of magnitude and scale that just went through factors of 10 in constant time from a person out to the observable universe.
It's weird how there are vast scales where there's nothing.
* smack * duh. Should've read the author's comments, eh? My mistake. I was assuming the circles on the end would perform the same action, but guess not.
