Stars, Planets and grains of Sand?

Question

Someone told me once that there are more stars and planets in the Universe than there are grains of sand on Earth. Anyone know this to be true or was I having my leg pulled?

Answer 1

This sounds like one of those important questions that Isaac Asimov used to ponder.

How many grains of sand are in a cubic centimeter? 5000?

How many cubic centimenters are there in a small beach?

1 km (coastline) x 30 m (width) x 1 m (depth of sand) = 3E+10 cubic centimeters.

That's 150 trillion grains of sand.

I guess a large beach might have 10 quadrillion grains of sand, maybe.

A common size for a galaxy might be about 50 billion stars. So it would take 3000 galaxies to cough up enough stars to equal the number of sand grains on a small beach, and 200000 galaxies to correspond to the number of sand grains on a large beach.

So, yes, the universe has more stars in it than there are grains of sand on a beach. And that's saying nothing about their planets.

Answer 2

It's entirely possible for there to be more planets in the universe than grains of sand on earth. Quite apart from the debate as to whether or not the universe is infinite or expanding, we can only see a tiny fraction of what is out there in our own galaxy - let alone any other galaxy.

Answer 3

Definitely true. There are at least 70000000000000000000000 stars out there, I doubt that there are that many grains of sand on Earth.

Answer 4

No the english science muesium said that there was more Stars in the universe than grains of sand on earth, and then on top of that there is the planets.

Answer 5

There is 4 billion catalogued stars in this galaxy alone and there is over 5 billion catalogued galaxies (american catalogue=catalog).
5x4B=20Billion and there is more than that we hadn't have enough names to catalogue and because there so many we don't know which is which so we don't catalogue them and some are to far away to know what they are.
There is an almost infinite number of stars with planets and stars without and galaxies in amazing numbers of clusters and maybe even alot per universe.
So just say the word infinite is infinite to the human mind and more infinite to say in 50000000x our lifetime, I suggest you start counting now. 1,2,3,4...
There is more stars and planets than there is grains of sand on this Earth that is catalogued but there is 900000000000000000000000x that, that isn't catalogued.
Of upto 50000000 Earths that have grains of sand so there is alot more than that.
It's amazing and we really shouldn't look that high "we are still humans".

Answer 6

There is a grain of truth in every statement and a grain of sand for every star.

Answer 7

No body have counted both. He was making a point that there are huge number of stars. Which is true. No pulling legs.
Remember this. When a person says God created the universe then he is pulling your legs.

Answer 8

I heard that there are more molecules in a glass of water than , there are grains of sand in the world. I know this was not your question, but just as interesting.

Answer 9

Well, the 'have to BE SPHERICAL' bit is true, but not only just spherical in shape, if it is only that, then we can assume that it is possible for us to make a planet, just place soccer ball or basket ball near a star and it will orbit the STAR! What it really means is that a planet has to have enough mass to create enough gravity that can pull all of its masses to focus on the centre, creating as much surface area as possible, therefore it must be spherical

Answer 10

who knows the heavens are infinite unlike grain of sand