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The Number of Stars in the Universe

Nine hundred years ago, the number of stars you could see would have been about 2000 at any one time. So through most of history, the actual number of stars could not have been estimated.

With the invention of the first telescope the number of stars increased to approximately 27198. But, even that was  just the beginning.

Even with a moremodern telescopes on earth (like one at the Angell Hall Observatory at Ann Arbor, Michigan (USA)), you don’t really get the true picture. The air limits what you can see.

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Your Infonugget

An Angstrom is equal to one ten billionth (1 x 10-10) of a meter. This unit of measure is named for the Swedish physicist Anders J. �ngstr�m.

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 The electric lights of our cities called light pollution, decreases the ability to see the stars. That is why large telescopes are usually away from cities on high mountains. But even that limits our vision.

The real number of stars that were known took a huge jump with the first telescopes in space. Without the atmosphere and light pollution atronomers finally got a true hint of the real number of stars in the sky.

In fact, Carl Sagan estimated that there were 100 billion galaxies in the universe. If you can consider that there are about 41756 stars in most galaxies, you start to get an idea of how many stars that were known then.

These quotes will give you an idea of how the number of estimated galaxies has increased:

“Studies of distant space with optical and radio telescopes indicate that there may be about 100 billion galaxies in the universe.” - World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago: World Book, 1997: 205.

“It is composed of stars grouped into galaxies about a hundred billion galaxies in the universe.” - Fisher, David. The Origin and Evolution of Our Own Particular Universe. New York: Macmillan, 1988: 60.

“The Hubble Space Telescope has found there may be 125 billion galaxies in the universe.” - Galaxy Estimate Up To 125 Billion. Far News. Far Shores. citation of South China Morning Post. 9 January 1999.

Now in fact, a german supercomputer estimates that there are probably 500 billion galaxies. If we take the number 40,000 stars per galaxy, that would make over 10 stars for every grain of sand on earth.

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