Trillions of Earths, 300 Sextillion Stars Say Scientists
Posted in: space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
The universe just got a lot more crowded. According to a new study, there may be three times as many stars in the universe as previously thought. How many? Three-hundred sextillion. How many is 300 sextillion? Behold:
300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
That is, as the Associated Press points out, three trillion times 100 billion.
That staggering new number comes from a new study published on Nature. The new study discovered that, unlike previously thought, most galaxies may be shaped like our own. One-third of the galaxies in the universe may actually be elliptical, not spiral, like the Milky Way.
Those elliptical galaxies, it turns out, contain 10 to 20 times more stars that previously thought. Those galaxies can contain as many as one- to 10 trillion stars.
The total number of stars is the universe is roughly equivalent to the number of human cells on earth–that’s 50 trillion cells times six billion people.
Speaking of earth, the lead astronomer in the findings, Pieter can Dokkum of Yale, suggested that, “There are possibly trillions of Earths orbiting these stars.” Way to make a guy feel insignificant, science.
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