In terrestrial affairs we think of "big" as being complicated; a city is more intricate than a village, an ocean more complicated than a puddle. For the universe, the reverse seems to be the case bigger is simpler Galaxies have some puzzling features, but on the whole, they are scarcely more complicated than the stars that compose them Beyond the galaxies, in the hierarchy of the cosmos, there are clusters of galaxies; these clusters are loosely bound by the gravity of their largest members and tend to look very much the same in all directions. Simplest of all is the universe at large, it is far less complicated than the Earth, one of its most trivial members. The universe consists of billions of galaxies flying apart as if from an explosion that set it in motion, it is not lopsided, nor does it rotate. The more thoroughly scientists investigate the universe, the more clearly its simplicity shines through.