Milky Way

[Winnow]

This is awe inspiring:

http://home.arcor-online.de/axel.mellinger/

click on the image, zoom in and then click on various parts...billions and billions...

It's hard to grasp just the number of stars in our own galaxy but then you can clearly see so many other galaxies that have just as many (give or take) stars as our own in the image as well.

There's somewhere around 100 billion stars in our galaxy...somewhere around 100 billion galaxies = 100 billion billion stars...and that's just what we can see in the known universe...who's to say there's not 100 billion universes as part of an even larger big bang? We simply can't see beyond our own universe with present technology. And yet with all of the mind boggling possibilities...I still don't believe in "God". Hint: because we don't understand or fully grasp something doesn't mean you should invent a lame story up to comfort your weak minds while causing the mass slaughter of humans on our little planet. Grow a pair. Drop your religious beliefs. Admit you don't have a fucking clue what's going on and maybe take all that wasted prayer time and put it towards something useful in one of the fields of science. If not, you'd actually be helping out humanity if you killed yourself instead of continuing to contribute to worldwide religious wars...come on...do it! Die you fucking religious assholes! It's the holiday season which results in the highest suicides rates. Join in the fun!

[Winnow]

Both popular and professional research articles in cosmology often use the term "Universe" to mean "observable universe". This can be justified on the grounds that we can never know anything by direct experimentation about any part of the Universe that is causally disconnected from us, although many credible theories require a total Universe much larger than the observable universe. No evidence exists to suggest that the boundary of the observable universe corresponds precisely to the physical boundary of the universe (if such a boundary exists); this is exceedingly unlikely in that it would imply that Earth is exactly at the center of the Universe, in violation of the cosmological principle. It is likely that the galaxies within our visible universe represent only a minuscule fraction of the galaxies in the Universe. According to the theory of cosmic inflation and its founder, Alan Guth, the entire Universe could be at least 1023 to 1026 times as large as the observable universe.

The statitistics

1) The number of galaxies. An estimated 50 billion galaxies are visible with modern telescopes and the total number in the universe must surely exceed this number by a huge factor, but we will be conservative and simply double it. That's 100,000,000,000 galaxies in the universe.

2) The number of stars in an average galaxy. As many as hundreds of billions in each galaxy.

Lets call it just 100 billion.

That's 100,000,000,000 stars per galaxy.

3)The number of stars in the universe.

So the total number of stars in the universe is roughly 100 billion x 100 billion.

That's 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars, 10 thousand, billion, billion. Properly known as 10 sextillion. And that's a very conservative estimate.

4) The number of stars that have planetary systems. The original extra-solar system planet hunting technology dictated that a star needed to be to close to us for a planet to be detected, usually by the stars 'wobble'. Better technology that allows us to measure the dimming of a stars brightness when a planet crosses its disk has now revolutionised planet hunting and new planets are being discovered at an ever increasing rate. So far (August 2003) around 100 have been discovered so we have very little data to work on for this estimate. Even so, most cosmologists believe that planetary formation around a star is quite common place. For the sake of argument let us say it's not and rate it at only one in a million and only one planet in each system, as we want a conservative estimate, not an exaggerated one. That calculation results in:

10,000,000,000,000,000 planets in the universe. Ten million, billion, as a conservative estimate.

5) The number planets capable of supporting life. Let's assume that this is very rare among planets and rate it at only one in a million. Simple division results in:

10,000,000,000 planets in the universe capable of producing life. Ten billion!

Star survey reaches 70 sextillion

Wednesday, July 23, 2003 Posted: 12:29 AM EDT (0429 GMT)

SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- Ever wanted to wish upon a star? Well, you have 70,000 million million million to choose from.

That's the total number of stars in the known universe, according to a study by Australian astronomers.

It's also about 10 times as many stars as grains of sand on all the world's beaches and deserts.

The figure -- 7 followed by 22 zeros or, more accurately, 70 sextillion -- was calculated by a team of stargazers based at the Australian National University...

...He said there were likely many million more stars in the universe but the 70 sextillion figure was the number visible within range of modern telescopes.

The actual number of stars could be infinite he said.

The universe is so big light from the other side of the universe "hasn't reached us yet," The Age newspaper quoted him as saying.

Asked if he believed the huge scale of the universe meant there was intelligent life out there somewhere, he told the paper: "Seventy thousand million million million is a big number ... it's inevitable."

"So how many grains of sand are there in the world? You could start
off by trying to guess how many grains of sand there are in a spoon of
sand. Use a magnifying glass to count how many grains fit in a small
section. Then, count how many of those sections fit in your spoon.
Multiply the two numbers together to get an estimate.

"Using this same principle, plus some additional information,
mathematicians at the University of Hawaii tried to guess how many
grains of sand are on the world's beaches. They came up with
7,500,000,000,000,000,000, or seven quintillion five quadrillion
grains of sand."

How many grains of sand are in the world?
http://www.miamisci.org/tripod/whysand.html

The calculation is detailed here:
http://www.hawaii.edu/suremath/jsand.html

That number is 7.5 x 10^18 or 7.5 billion billion.

How many stars, galaxies, clusters, QSO's etc. in the Universe?
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/astronomy/faq/ ... ion-3.html
"To get the total stellar population in the Milky Way [that is, in our
galaxy alone], we must take the number of luminous stars that we can
see at large distances and assume that we know how many fainter stars
go along with them. Recent numbers give about 400,000,000,000 (400
billion) stars, but a 50% error either way is quite plausible."

So in our galaxy alone, there might be between 2 x 10^11 and 6 x 10^11 stars

How many galaxies in the Universe?
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/astronomy/faq/ ... ion-4.html
"the Hubble telescope is capable of detecting about 80 billion
galaxies (although not all of these within the foreseeable future!).
In fact, there must be many more than this, even within the observable
Universe, since the most
common kind of galaxy in our own neighborhood is the faint dwarfs
which are difficult enough to see nearby, much less at large
cosmological distances. For example, in our own local group, there are
3 or 4 giant galaxies which would be detectable at a billion
light-years or more (Andromeda, the Milky Way, the Pinwheel in
Triangulum, and maybe the Large Magellanic Cloud). However, there are
at least another 20 faint members, which would be difficult to find at
100 million light-years, much less the billions of light years to
which the brightest galaxies can be seen."

So the lower end estimate for the number of galaxies is 8 x 10^10

If we accept even the lower end of these Hubble figures, and if our
Milky Way has a typical number of stars in it, that puts the number of
stars in the universe to be at least
(2 x 10^11) x (8 x 10^10) = 16 x 10^ 21

So if we round the number of sand grains to, say, 10^20
and round the number of stars to, say 10^22
then there are at least 100 stars in the universe for every grain of sand on earth.

As you say, that's a *LOT*

[Winnow]

By volume our Sun is 1000000 timers bigger than the Earth…The sun in turn is 2100 times smaller than VY Canis Majoris - the largest star in the universe. Or to put in differently…It would take over 7,000,000,000,000,000 (7 quadrillion) Earths to fill the volume of VY Canis Majoris.

The Sun with its 8 circling planets is a star in a galaxy (a cluster of stars) called The Milky Way. Number of stars in The Milky Way - 300 billion. How many galaxies are there in the observable universe? Around 100 billion.
Total number of stars in the observable universe: 300 billion x 100 billion = 30 sextillion.

Here’s a huge (!) image of a small part of the observable part of the universe…every single bright dot is a galaxy.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... _edit1.jpg

It is possible that Betelgeuse will become a supernova,[4][29] which will be the brightest ever recorded, outshining the Moon in the night sky.[29] Considering its size and age of 8.5 million years, old for its size class, it may explode within the next thousand years.[29] Since its rotational axis is not toward the Earth and also because of its 640 light year distance,[29] Betelgeuse's supernova will not cause a gamma ray burst in the direction of Earth large enough to damage its ecosystems.

Nobel Laureate Charles Townes announced evidence that 15 consecutive years of stellar contraction has been observed by UC Berkeley's Infrared Spatial Interferometer (ISI) atop Mt. Wilson Observatory in Southern California. Reported on June 9, 2009, the star has shrunk 15% since 1993 with an increasing rate. The average speed at which the radius of the star is shrinking over the last 15 years is approximately 210–219 m/s (470–490 mph).[30]

According to the university, Betelgeuse's radius is about 5.5 A.U.s, and the star's radius has shrunk by a distance equal to half an astronomical unit, or about the orbit of Venus.[31] Some theorists[who?] have speculated that this behavior is expected for a star at the beginning of the gravitational collapse at the end of its life.[citation needed] The mass of Betelgeuse puts it in range to become a neutron star or possibly a black hole.

[Drolgin Steingrinder]

Eric Idle said:
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

[Zaelath]

It's just a shame that the chances of any 2 habited planets establishing communication is inversely proportional to the size of the universe. I hope they're having a better go at it than us.

[Nick]

Great thread: To contribute - Another High Res pic.

http://449942.tempopage.com/008_1506.html

[Bubba Grizz]

This all makes me feel very very small. So screw dieting.

[Drolgin Steingrinder]

This all makes me feel very very small. So screw dieting.

You came here for the chocolate anyway.

[Aslanna]

You should watch The Universe on the History Channel. The latest season was kinda meh since I guess they are running out of subject matter (!) but earlier ones are worth checking out.

[Funkmasterr]

You should watch The Universe on the History Channel. The latest season was kinda meh since I guess they are running out of subject matter (!) but earlier ones are worth checking out.

Those are next in my Netflix queue

[Nick]

For the record, Mars bars in the USA are what we call "Milky Ways" in UK and Ireland and "Milky ways" in the US are some fucking weird abortion version.

UK Mars bars are completely different and taste horrific.

Whilst food, generally, in the USA, absolutely outshines Irish food, in terms of sheer gluttony, range, scale and audacity (all amazing things that you are so goddamn lucky for) - your chocolate bars are terrible. Seems like a cultural thingy.

(and UK's chocolate bars are muck compared to pockets of continential Europe - how losing out are we?)

[Zaelath]

For the record, Mars bars in the USA are what we call "Milky Ways" in UK and Ireland and "Milky ways" in the US are some fucking weird abortion version.

UK Mars bars are completely different and taste horrific.

Whilst food, generally, in the USA, absolutely outshines Irish food, in terms of sheer gluttony, range, scale and audacity (all amazing things that you are so goddamn lucky for) - your chocolate bars are terrible. Seems like a cultural thingy.

(and UK's chocolate bars are muck compared to pockets of continential Europe - how losing out are we?)

Milky Ways here are kinda like a Mars Bar if you fluff whipped the centre first... and didn't add the caramel before chocolate coating.