Q: Approximately how many stars are there in the universe?

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SirUlli

Senior member
Jan 13, 2003
828
0
0
Three Tough Questions

Q: Approximately how many stars are there in the universe?

A: The number of stars in the visible universe is estimated to be 70 sextillion, or 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 [seven followed by twenty-two zeros].

and some Info to this

# ten times more than the number of grains of sand on Earth
# eleven times the number of cups of water in all the Earth's oceans
# ten thousand times the number of wheat kernels that have ever been produced on Earth
# one hundred million times more than the number of ants in all the world
# one hundred million times the dollar value of all the market-priced assets in the world
# ten billion times the number of cells in a human being
# one hundred billion times the number of letters in the 14 million books in the Library of Congress
....

Modern SETI efforts began with a paper writt. They published in the science press in 1959. By Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison suggested that the microwave frequencies between 1000 and 10,000 megahertz would be best suited for interstellar communications.

By Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison

Full Story

only for Info..................
Sir Ulli
 
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Robor

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
16,979
0
76
Looking at it as 70,000... doesn't seem like that much but when you put it into words to compare to things we can understand... WOW!

Thanks again SirUlli! :D
 
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DanC

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2000
5,553
0
0
Of course... it *could* also be answered this way:

Q: Approximately how many stars are there in the universe?

A: Lots.


;)
 
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lobadobadingdong

Lifer
Aug 27, 2002
10,043
2
0
considering our knowledge of the universe is so limited, and our current knowledge indicates it could be infinite space, there stands to reason thier could be an infinite number of stars. (and an infinite number of anything for that matter)
 
Jeff7

Jeff7

Lifer
Jan 4, 2001
41,596
20
81
Originally posted by: lobadobadingdong
considering our knowledge of the universe is so limited, and our current knowledge indicates it could be infinite space, there stands to reason thier could be an infinite number of stars. (and an infinite number of anything for that matter)
Click to expand...

Maybe. Steven Hawking has some nifty stuff on this - like, not only was it matter and energy coming from the Big Bang, but also space along with it
Scientific American recently had a few new theories, like that our Universe's plane of existence collided with another plane (or brane rather), along another dimension, and the kinetic energy of the impact was converted into matter and energy, ergo, you have the Big Bang.
But in these cases, the Universe, defined as the matter and energy that we can perceive, is in fact finite. Space itself...may or may not extend indefinitely in dimensions we can traverse. If space is infinite, there may be other universes out there, but it's unlikely we'll ever see them, due in part to some more theories of Hawking's - like, even if we travel at the speed of light, the other universes (and their own empty space) are pulling away from us so fast that we'd never catch up. If space is finite, well, so's the amount of matter and energy in it. But either way, there's still a huge number of stars out there - heck, check out Hubble's Ultra Deep Field - approxiamately 10,000 galaxies in that one picture, each one could have hundreds of thousands of stars. This page says that the area viewed in the picture is "one-tenth the diameter of the full moon" as viewed from Earth. Now I don't know how many tenths-of-a-full-moon it'd take to fill in the entire sphere of the sky around us, but it'd have to be a lot. (I don't remember any areas of a sphere equations anymore).
Now multiply that large number by 10,000. Lots and lots and lots of galaxies.
 
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Baldy18

Diamond Member
Oct 30, 2000
5,038
0
0
Only one "being" knows how many stars there really are.


That said there were some findings by the Hubble telescope recently that went against the theory of the "big bang". I heard this second hand so I don't have the details but a Google search shoud pull up some info on this. Basically as I understand it the deal was that the "big bang" says that at the time of that event a tremendous amount of energy was created. As the universe ages that energy slowly dissipates and eventually the stars will burn out and the universe will end (also the universe expands as that energy moves from the source of it's creation - makes sense I guess), or something like that. The Hubble telescope, in some way, has found that the universe is gaining (not losing) energy. Like I said I don't have the details and I heard this second hand but maybe someone would be interested in looking up the details.
 
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networkman

Lifer
Apr 23, 2000
10,436
1
0
I'm reminded of a "Far Side" cartoon I saw in the paper once, titled "Carl Sagan as a kid" -- it shows a picture of a kid standing outside at night with his sister looking up at the sky, with a caption like "Look at all the stars.. there must be HUNDREDS of them!" :)

Edit: Hey, I did a quick search and even found a link on The Planetary Society's site about this very cartoon. Second to the last paragraph at the bottom of the page:

A strange, but true story: The day Dr. Sagan passed, I was in my room before retiring to bed for the evening. I decided I needed some humor to end the day, so I grabbed the Far Side Gallery Book by Gary Larson on the shelf, one of three different editions that I have. I just opened it, looking for no particular page, no particular comic. Tears started to well in my eyes, for I realized what page I had opened it to -- one of my favorites. It was the page that contained a comic depicting two small children, a boy and a girl, on a hill, looking up at a sea of stars. The boy is pointing up at the stars, saying "Look, Becky...there must be hundreds and hundreds of them up there!" The caption below the comic simply said: "Carl Sagan as a kid."

Rest in Peace, Carl.
 
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Spacehead

Lifer
Jun 2, 2002
13,067
9,858
136
Related to what Baldy was saying, scientists always thought the universe was either open, closed or flat.
Open - universe expands forever, but expansion slows over time
Closed - universal expansion reaches a stopping point & closes back in on itself, leads to Big Crunch
Flat - universe stops expanding but doesn't collapse on itself

Now they are finding the the universe seems to be expanding faster as time goes on.
I think that's where dark energy comes into play, if i recall.
 
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