Study Estimates 300 Sextillion Stars in Universe

By Aeirin Acosta on Dec 2, 2010 in Astronomy, Science • No comments

A new study suggests the universe could have 300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 300 sextillion stars.

Being published by the journal Nature, the research led by Yale astronomer Pieter van Dokkum found out that there are many more red dwarf stars, the most common star in the universe.

In an interview with Space.com, Pieter van Dokkum said that the findings are based on data gathered when the researchers were analyzing “red dwarfs”.

van Dokkum is using the Keck telescope in W.M. Keck Observatory, Hawaii to detect the faint signature of red dwarfs in eight massive so-called elliptical galaxies located between about 50 million and 300 million light-years away.

“It is remarkable that we can measure and quantify the light of these incredibly feeble stars in galaxies outside of the Milky Way,” the astronomer said.

The new finding suggests there are more stars inside elliptical galaxies than previously thought.

“We’re seeing 10 or 20 times more stars than we expected,” van Dokkum said. By his calculations, that triples the number of estimated stars from 100 sextillion to 300 sextillion. ”The abundance of these stars is very surprising — there are many more than we had expected,” he added.

To date, astronomers have discovered just over 500 alien planets around other stars. ”There are possibly trillions of Earths orbiting these stars,” van Dokkum said.