How Many Galaxies Are There?

 

Just how many galaxies are out there used to be a mystery, with estimates rising from the thousands to the millions to the billions, all as telescope technology improved.

Staring at the night sky in front of us reveals infinite Space full of small flashing lights. Some of them are planets of the Solar System but the rest are stars of our own Galaxy-  Milky Way. Even if we have to be precise all the stars we see with the naked eyes are just from a small part of the Galaxy.

But we already know that this is not everything, we know that the Universe is full with many Galaxies- some smaller and others much larger than the Milky Way. But how many Galaxies are in the Universe? This question is difficult to answer for our minds as we are still far from exploring the whole Universe. But we can assume, and must admit that we’re pretty good at conjecture.

How Many Galaxies Are There
Credit: flickr Editorial/Getty Images Moment Mobile Getty Images

So, last studies say that in the Universe are between 100 and 250 billion galaxies, and recently supercomputer simulation of Germany issued a statement that galaxies are 500 billion. It turns out that for every star in the Milky Way has a Galaxy in the Universe!

Most of them are probably small dwarf Galaxies. For example, our  Local Group of Galaxies has only 3 large galaxies:  the Milky Way, Andomeda and Triangulum Galaxy. Others are small and irregular Galaxies.

Yet how scientists are able to say how many Galaxies in the Universe?

With the help of the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers can see Galaxies near the edge of the observable Universe (place where the light had a chance to reach us over the last 13.7 billion years) So exploring a very small part of the sky, they counted how many galaxies are in it, and then multiply that number for the rest of the sky.

How Many Galaxies Are There
Credit: http://earthsky.org/space/1-2-million-galaxies-in-3d

It is important to understand that the number of galaxies depends on the power of the instrument were used for galaxies to be counted. It is very likely in the near future with the help of a more powerful telescope to see a faint galaxies in the same area of study course, which will increase the estimated number of galaxies in general.

 

 

 

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