You might have seen visual reproductions of our galaxy based on information gathered by scientists who compared the Milky Way to other galaxies around us. They say an image is worth a thousand words, but what would you say if you could hold a mini galaxy in your hand?

That’s actually a small-scale replica of our Milky Way trapped in a glass cube. A laser was used to etch around 80,000 of our galaxy’s most important stars, using three-dimensional data from the Japan’s National Astronomical Observatory.

Responsible for this interesting cube are a bunch of Japanese guys that work for Living World, a company that encourages architectural design. They claim that the production of the cube was motivated by the urge to see a galaxy in three dimensions. In contrast, while studying a encyclopedia, galaxies can only be viewed in two dimensions. The Japanese guys also claim that the Magellan Cloud – the closest galaxy to the Milky Way - would not fit inside the cube because they wanted to keep everything at scale.

This is the second cube the Japanese have come up with. In this version the overall dimensions of the cube have been reduced from the 15cm square of 2005, to 12cm, as the previous block was quite heavy and difficult to handle.

If you visit the Living World site, you could actually order your copy of the glass cube for $790.89.