• Question: how many other galaxies are there?

    Asked by 322gdna29 to Arthur, Clare, Daniel, David, Tora on 17 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Clare Harding

      Clare Harding answered on 17 Nov 2014:

      There are at least 100 billion galaxies in the universe. Luckily, someone didn’t have to sit and count them all, they counted all the ones they could see in a very small area then multiplied it up to cover the whole universe.

      If you want to see a really good description of how many stars there are in our galaxy (the milky way) I recommended this: https://what-if.xkcd.com/83/

    • Photo: David Wilson

      David Wilson answered on 17 Nov 2014:

      I’ll add one point to that- there are 100 billion galaxies in the *observable* universe. The universe could be much, much larger, we just cant see it because the light hasn’t had time to get to us yet!

    • Photo: Daniel Parsons

      Daniel Parsons answered on 17 Nov 2014:

      I’ll also add the the answer – we haven’t even counted the ones we can see! The 100 billion observable ones is a best guess, based on counting all of them we can see in one small part of the sky and then multiplying this up to estimate the number for the whole universe.

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