How many planets there are in the whole universe?

Answer 1

No one knows! It's like a frog wondering how many frogs are there in the world

Answer 2

We know there are 10 to the power of 11 stars on an average galaxy and we believe there are around 10 to the power of 11 galaxies in the whole Universe. That makes up 10 to the power of 22 stars all together, right?

Now, what percentage of these stars have planets? Current estimates for this figure is between 20%-50%. In other words, of all stars out there there will be between 0.2 times 10 to the power of 22 to 0.5 times 10 to the power of 22 stars that can accommodate planets. So this is the number of estimated Planetary Systems in our Universe (our Solar System is one of them!)

The only thing remaining is to make an estimate on how many planets per Planetary System exist out there. Well, until recently we found it hard to define what a planet really is, see what happened with Pluto last year for example. Pluto was downgraded to dwarf planet because of this definition problem.

Anyway, for our Solar System this figure would be 8 but no doubt there will be other planets with less planets that that and others with more. With our current technology we can 'see' only the big ones, so the average figure tends to be low, perhaps 1 or 2 planets per Planetary System. But if we assume a more reasonable figure of, say, around 5 per System, the final answer would be: between 10 to the power of 22 and 2.5 times 10 to the power of 22 planets for the whole Universe.

That is, between 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 and 25,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets. Which is a big number, you'll never be able to visit them all! :-)

Answer 3

I was taught that there were 9 planets in our solar system, now in the whole universe probably there are too many

Answer 4

there may be trillions of planets in the whole universe which havent been discovered

Answer 5

before asking that question you have to ask this first "what is the total area of the universe?" Because if we don't know when to stop counting planets then we will have to answer your question until, WE, man reaches our extinction...

Answer 6

There are about 10 trillion billion stars and each one may have multiple planets. That is the universe and not the galaxy.

Answer 7

its impossible to find out how many planets exist in the universe

Answer 8

We're still looking, and ain't 100% certain yet...........
So far, it's been estimated that there are at least 70 sextillion stars in the known universe, that is 70 000 000 000 000 000 000 000, or 230 billion times as much as the 300 billion in the Milky Way, the our own galaxy.

And we've figured out there are 8 or 9 (depending on your point of view) in our own system........ while out of all the stars in the known universe, we've so far only got as far as discovering about 200 "Exoplanets" and still looking

Answer 9

well think about this: in our galaxy there's more than 100.000.000.000 stars and there are more than 50.000.000.000 galaxies each with hundreds of billions of stars. if just 1 out of 1.000 or just 1 out of 1.000.000 had planets, there would countless planets.

Answer 10

The answer is nowhere. Even scientists still debate what the mean of planet.

Answer 11

No one can give u sure answer to dat.But a newspaper said about 200 have been found