How many stars in the universe and is it infinite?

Sometimes, peering into the night sky, it becomes interesting whether there are boundaries of outer space and how many stars in the universe. Scientists around the world are trying to answer this question. But with time it becomes clear that the number of stars in the universe is greater than previously thought.

Therefore, we can only trace the chronology of opinions and assumptions about their number, including the latest knowledge and research.

Our knowledge of the universe

Once upon a time, in the time of Plato, the learned world believed that the number of objects in the universe does not differ from what we see with the ordinary eye. Read from three to four thousand stars. And the idea of the cosmos was radically different from the modern interpretation.

During the Middle Ages, the first telescope, invented by John Lippersgue in 1608, appeared. Since then, it has become possible to observe distant objects. The learned world and the philosophers of that time sent the first telescopes to the night sky. From that moment it became clear that how many stars in the universe do not correspond to the usual visual observation. They turned out to be much larger, some of the invisible objects became available to scientists and philosophers, armed though primitive (they consisted of two lenses), but more effective than human eyes with telescopes.

Despite this, the stars and galaxies at that time were taken for the same object. Understanding that the galaxy can contain billions of stars, then did not exist. And this greatly distorted the understanding of the total number of stars in the universe.

Technologies and opportunities

A hundred years later, in the eighteenth century, the power of telescopes increased tens of times. This is what enabled scientists to observe new, previously invisible objects of the universe. By that time, about one hundred thousand stars became available to observe. It was the ability to see that knowledge of how many stars in the universe, in a different period of cognition by our civilization, was always limited.

Today, the resolving power of optical equipment has increased thousands of times. In comparison with the original initial thirty-fold telescope Galileo Galilei.

The launch of the Hubble orbital telescope made it possible to increase this figure by another 7-9 times. Before the eyes of astronomers around the world, new expanses of the universe opened. According to scientists, to determine how many stars in the universe need to understand how many galaxies in it and what its dimensions are. The reason for this is the presence of gravitational forces that hold stars in galaxies.

The visible part of the cosmos

According to preliminary calculations, in the field of the visible universe (about 14 billion light-years) there are more than seven trillion galaxies. But scientists believe that nebulae and cosmic dust cover about 90% of objects. Therefore, the figure can easily turn into seventy trillion. In addition, each galaxy contains billions of stars. Depending on its size, from a few million to a trillion.

At the moment, the scientific world believes that in the visible part of the universe there are about 10 in 24 degrees of stars. But it is impossible to state specifically that this is an exact figure. The reasons for this are quite weighty. We do not see all objects and do not know the exact dimensions of the universe, if any. Modern optical technology thoroughly studies the stars and constellations of the visible cosmos. Isolate and classify new galaxies. Each object is studied separately.

The search for truth continues

Previously, the optic method of observation favored by astronomers turned out to be incapable of detecting all objects of the observable portion of the cosmos. Therefore, additional studies are carried out in the infrared and X-ray ranges. This work takes a lot of time scientists around the world. A catalog is replenished with new objects. The number of objects detected is steadily growing.

For example, in 2014, the new Ultra Deep Field telescope examined 1/13000000 part of the observed sky and discovered about ten thousand galaxies in this area. All this information requires careful processing and analysis. For a further, more complete understanding of the structure of the universe.

Perhaps in time we will understand that our knowledge of how many stars in the universe are wrong. The cosmos itself is boundless or has a different space structure. And it may well be that we live in one of many universes. Whatever the truth, the desire of mankind for knowledge sooner or later will lead to an answer to the question posed.