how many stars are in the sky?

Answer 1

too many to count :)

Answer 2

Julie Lutz, a professor of astronomy at Washington State University, she said, "It depends."

If you're in a large city, you'll see fewer than 100 stars.
If you're in a dark place with no lights, like in the middle of a Palouse farm field with no moonlight, you'll see about 2,000 stars.

"But," says Professor Lutz, "that's not really how many stars there are."
You get the idea. Where you put your eyes helps determine how many stars are in your sky. Which is of course not necessarily the same as the sky.
In fact, counting the stars in the sky really means determining the number of stars in the universe, in all of space.
"All we've got of the universe is what we can observe," says Professor Lutz. And we can't observe all of space, even with telescopes. It's just too big. So we can't really count all the stars.

However, astronomers can estimate the number of stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. They combine what they know about our sun, which is actually a star, with what they know about the Milky Way.
The Milky Way, like all galaxies, is an assemblage of stars, gasses and dust. It's shaped like a pancake. But instead of being solid, the Milky Way is spiral-shaped, like the biggest pinwheel you can possibly imagine.
This huge pinwheel rotates, and the way it rotates allows astronomers to estimate how much material there is within the galaxy. Since they also know how much material is in our sun, they can determine how many sun-equivalents there are in the Milky Way by dividing the total estimated material in the galaxy by the amount of material in our sun. (And you were wondering what algebra could be used for?)


When astronomers do that division, they get 200 billion stars in the Milky Way--that's 200,000,000,000!
And the Milky Way is just one of many galaxies in the universe--one of millions. "There is no limit to the number of galaxies that we've found," says Lutz. And there's no reason to think there will be a limit to the number of galaxies, for the further astronomers look, the more they find.
The Hubble space telescope is one of the tools that is helping astronomers to see further. One of its jobs is to take pictures of one small patch of the sky outside of the Milky Way. It's dark out there, very dark. So Hubble takes a lot of pictures of that one patch. Then a computer makes a composite of these pictures, adding them together so the faint light of distant stars and galaxies is visible.
What Hubble has shown us so far is that as far away as it can see, there are more and more new galaxies. And since Hubble is not the ultimate see-the-farthest instrument, there's no way to know whether or not we'll find more galaxies as technology gets better.
So how many stars are in the sky? Use your imagination. Your guess is as good as anyone's.

Answer 3

The number of stars in the sky is more than 100^100 ----> that's 100, followed up another 100 zeros.

Answer 4

Impossible to count. We still see them in the sky after they've exploded and died. It's like asking how many grains of sand are on a beach....and I don't know that one either !

Answer 5

Some would say countless. But there are only about 16 thousand stars visible on any horizon at any time. If you don't believe me, stand out there and count them. ;-D

Answer 6

Endless stars.

By the way, each star is WAY BIGGER than our planet. So, what does that say about our galaxy. There are also endless galaxies. How about that?

Guido

Answer 7

Let me see.. I'll count them

Ok there is 1
There is 1
over there is one more..

Nope don't see anymore. So the answer from my house tonight is 3.

Answer 8

Somewhere between a Gazillion, and a Bazillion, + or -
a google or so.

Answer 9

why do you want to know?

your wasting your time asking a meaningless question

just think about it and reason it to your judgement

Answer 10

a lot