Thanks to missions like Gaya, we can get one step closer to giving a more reliable answer to this frequently asked question: “How many stars are there in the universe?”

Are you one of the dreamers until you get tired of looking up at the sky and starting to count the stars or someone or something interrupts them? Have you ever wondered how many real stars there are in the sky?

According to astronomers, if you look at the sky on a clear night, you will see thousands of stars, 6,000 or more. But this is only a small part of all the stars out there; The rest is far from your point of view.

The question that puzzled scientists

Therefore; How many stars are there in the universe? Conversationally, this question is easy to ask, but it is difficult for scientists to give a reasonable answer. This question has confused scientists, philosophers, musicians and dreamers for ages.

“If we want to know the number of stars in the universe, we must first define the meaning of the universe,” says David Cornreich, an assistant professor at Ithaca College in New York. The visible universe goes back about 13.8 billion years, and our universe may extend beyond this time, but we can not see it, as well as some astronomers believe that we may have lived in the “universe”, where there will be other universes of our own contained in the largest entity of any kind.

Although the definition of the universe is limited to the “visible” universe we can see, Conrech says that to calculate the number of stars within it, we need to know the size of the universe and that the first complexity facing us here is the universe. Developing itself, the second complication is that “space-time” can bend.

Despite the complexities, “How many stars are there in our universe?” That may be the simplest answer to the question. It calculates the number of stars in a normal galaxy and then multiplies it by the number of galaxies in the universe, but it is difficult, and there are enough obstacles to overcome.

To estimate the number of stars in the universe, astronomers must first estimate the number of galaxies (NASA).

Number of galaxies

The stars do not scatter randomly in space, but come together in large groups known as galaxies, and then before calculating the number of stars in the universe, astronomers must first count the number of galaxies.

To do this, they take very detailed pictures of small parts of the sky, count all the galaxies seen in those images, and then multiply that number by the number of images needed to capture the entire sky.

In October 2016, an article in science suggested that there were about two trillion galaxies in the visible universe, based on deep field images from the Hubble Space Telescope.

The number of stars is an incredible number

Astronomers do not know exactly how many stars there are in those two trillion galaxies, because most of them are so far away that there is no way to know exactly, but astronomers generally estimate the number of stars. Should do.

Some estimates suggest that the Milky Way galaxy contains about 100 billion “solar masses” or 100 billion times the mass of the Sun. It causes about 100 billion stars in our galaxy, on average, depending on the number of stars larger and smaller than our Sun.

Using the Milky Way as a model, the number of stars in a typical galaxy (100 billion) can be multiplied by the number of galaxies in the universe (2 trillion), and then we can find the answer to the question of the number of stars in the universe is an astonishing number, because there is about 200 billion trillion in one way or another in the universe. Says 200 Sextilion.

According to the conversation website, the number is so large that it is hard to imagine; This is 10 times the amount of water in every ocean on earth.

There are about 200 billion trillion stars in the universe (NASA)

Special missions for counting stars

Missions such as the Gaya spacecraft, launched by the European Space Agency in 2013 and expected to be operational by 2022, may provide more answers to the number of stars in the universe, as the Gaya mission aims at precise three-dimensional shapes. Map of the Milky Way galaxy, about 1% of the Milky Way galaxy.

According to the European Space Agency, Gaya will observe each of the 1 billion target stars an average of 70 times in 5 years and accurately plan their positions, distances, motions, and brightness changes.

When these dimensions are combined, they create an unprecedented picture of the structure and evolution of our galaxy. Through missions like these, we can get one step closer to giving a more reliable answer to this frequently asked question: “How many stars are there in the universe?”

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