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Total Number of Stars in the Universe

Fourteen hundred years ago, the number of number of stars you can see without even a pair of binoculars would have been about 2100 at any one time. So until optics were invented, the total number of stars could not have been guessed.

With the telescope of Galileo the number of stars increased to about 28109. But, even at that was reallyjust a start.

Even with a big telescope telescopes on earth (like one at the Copenhagen University Observatory made in 1861 in Copenhagen, Denmark, you can't get a real idea of how many stars are out there. The air limits what you can see.

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Today's Infonugget

A brown dwarf is a "star" whose mass is too small to have nuclear fusion occur at its core (the temperature and pressure at its core are insufficient for fusion) - a failed star. A brown dwarf is not very luminous. It is usually regarded as having a mass between 1028 kg and 84 x 1028 kg. It continues to cool down and contract, turning into a compact dark object that is not easily detected.

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 The electric lights of our cities , also decreases the ability to see the stars. That is why most observatories are usually away from cities on high mountains. But even that limits our vision.

The incredible number of stars that were known greatly increased with the first telescopes in space. Without the atmosphere scientists 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 consider that there are about 41438 stars in most galaxies, you start to get a glimpse 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.

"The latest estimates have ranged anywhere from ten billion to one hundred billion galaxies." - The Rebirth of Cosmology. New York: Knopf, 1976: 187.

"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.

The Number of Stars in the Universe