The universe is complex, massive and unfriendly. Worse still, they keep finding new bits of it hidden in the unknowable depths of particle physics. It's enough to make you want to crawl back under your bed and reduce your known universe to about 12 square feet of duvet.
Luckily there exist a few lovely people around the world with the talent and inclination to dedicate their lives to explaining the trickier aspects of science through beautiful animated videos. And this series of explainers funded by the Royal Observatory of Greenwich and produced by Beakus are among the best.
There are three videos in the series, each aimed at answering one question each. The first - How Big Is The Universe - is presented by ROG astronomer Liz, who helpfully provides an explanation about how to conceive of a space eight hundred and eighty four billion trillion kilometres across.
The other two clips - 'What's inside a black hole?' and 'How do we know how old the sun is?' are equally lovely. All can be seen over at the ROG site, Vimeo or below.