There are more Stars in the Universe than grains of sand on every beach on earth. Is this a myth or fact?

Answer 1

think of it this way

earth is a very limited amount of space compared to the rest of the universe, counting all the stars in the entire universe would far surpass grains of sand on every beach.

the earth is a tiny place.
=)

Answer 2

Let's estimate it. The Andromeda Galaxy is about 2 million light years away, but it's closer than average, so if we guess that galaxies average 3 million light years apart, and the edge of the universe is 14,000 million light years away in each direction, that's room for nearly 10^12 galaxies. Another answerer said just over 10^11.

The number of stars in the galaxy according to the web page below is from 2 x 10^11 to 5 x 10^11. So the total number of stars in the universe is 10^23, give or take a factor of about 4. It's a big number, but it can be estimated sensibly enough.

Sand grains come in a huge range of sizes, but geologists call it "medium sand" if its grains are from a quarter to a half millimetre in diameter. Suppose we take a third of a millimetre, then a thousand grains in a line would cover a foot, so a thousand million (that's 10^9) would fill a cubic foot.

With as many grains of sand as there are stars, we would have enough sand to cover a square two thousand miles long, two thousand miles wide and a foot deep, which isn't a ridiculous amount. I think it's more than the world's beaches, but less than the beaches plus the deserts, especially when you think how many feet deep some of them are.

I really do feel sorry for people who give up on big numbers like these and just say oh, it's so big that nobody could have any idea how big it is.

Answer 3

Fact.

If all the beaches of the planet represent as much as 1/1000 of the planet area, and that those beach had 50 cm thick sand, there would be 2E22 grains of sands, assuming a fine sand with grain size averaging 0.2 mm in diameter.
There are about 200 billion stars in our galaxy, and an estimated 125 billion galaxies in the universe. Assuming that out galaxy is an average one, this means a total of 2E22 stars (approximately).
Numbers are pretty close as they are already. Any further refinement in the estimate would reduce the number of grain of sand.

Answer 4

According to astronomers and scientists calculating as best as possibly can be done, it's a fact. Most recent calculations for # of stars in the universe gives a figure of 10^23 stars. That's 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars, or 100 septillion. The grains of sand calculation is 6^20. This equates to approx 167 stars for every grain of sand if my arithmatic is correct. I might add that in Europe one billion has (12) zeros. They refer to it as 'one million million'. In North America(U.S. & Canada for sure), one billion has (9) zeros. I'm assuming the North American calculation is used. If that's not the case, then the use of the European (British) system absolutely would swing the answer in favour of the grains of sand (6,000 - 1) over the # of stars in the universe.

Answer 5

It is a useful device for imagining huge numbers. It is not a fact, no-one can count either or get close to knowing how many there are. We can write down twohundred billion (approximately the number of stars in out galaxy) and know it is a large number but imagining it is difficult. The grains of sand help us do that.

Another way of imagining 200billion is to count seconds.

A million seconds ago was just eleven days ago.
A billion seconds ago was 1975.
200billion seconds ago was about 4300BCE.

Answer 6

Fact

Answer 7

It is neither fact nor myth. There has to be a (grain) of truth in it, but it is not something which anyone is really going to be able to prove very easily. Until they do it will remain a "catch 22" situation.

Answer 8

No one can count either one so it is hard to say. Both are extraodinarily large numbers. Some think that there are an infinite number of stars, some don't. I would say that there are a finite number of grains of sand. So if you think sand is finite and stars are infinite, then there are more stars than sand.
I am not sure if that is true or not.

Answer 9

its neither. Its an assumption. We can only estimate grains of sand. and as far as stars are concerned, the farther out into the universe scientist are able to see, the more stars they see.

Answer 10

tell you what.... you count the grains of sand and I'll count the stars