cosmology (n.)

1650s, "general science or theory of the material universe as an ordered whole," from Modern Latin cosmologia, from Greek kosmos (see cosmos) + -logia "discourse" (see -logy). By 1753 as "the branch of metaphysics which discusses the ultimate philosophical problems relating to the existence of the universe." Related: Cosmologist.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces

Between stars—on stars where no human race is.

I have it in me so much nearer home

To scare myself with my own desert places.

[Robert Frost, from "Desert Places," 1936]