Are there more stars in the universe or more grains of sand on the Earth?

Answer 1

Many more stars

Answer 2

I have heard this often but never seen a calculation. If you accept estimates of 100 billion stars in each of 100 billion galaxies in the universe, then I calculate that if every star were a 1mm grain, which is coarse or medium coarse sand, it would be enough sand to cover the Earth about 1 inch deep. Now, if you spread all the sand in the world out evenly, including on the ocean floor, is it deeper than 1 inch or less? I don't know.

Answer 3

Let's approach this mathematically.
The surface of the Earth is approximately 570 million square kilometre. About 1/7 of land masses are covered with sand (land masses account for 1/4 of the total area, the rest is covered by water). This means we should have 20 million square kilometer of sand covered area (mostly deserts, the Sahara by itself is 9 million km^2, but a few beaches as well).
Sand is composed of particles ranging in size between 0.0625 and 2 mm, so let's take an average sand grain to be 0.25 mm (yes, it is much less than the median size, but there are much more smaller grains than larger ones, as a large grain can always break down into several smaller ones from the effect of erosion). This means that one square metre can have a layer of 16 million (16E6) grain of sand to cover it.
To cover all 20 million square km of sand covered land would thus require 3.2E20 grain of sand.
There is an estimated 1E21 stars in the universe. This means all the beaches and all the deserts of the world would have to be covered by a layer of sand that should be 3 grain thick on average.
Even counting only the Sahara, it would have to be less than 10 grains thick, or 2.5 mm deep, to have as many grains as there are stars. I am sure the sand is a lot deeper than that.

So it seems the sand wins.

Answer 4

The number of stars in the universe is dependent upon your deffinition of a star. There are too many stars for scientists to actually count one-by-one, so other methods of estimating the total number of stars are used. We believe that there are on the order of 1021 stars in our Universe. If you write that number out, it looks like this: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. This is a lot of stars!

There are only 120 Billion Galaxies. Far fewer than sand.

The sand issue is even worse. How small a grain will you consider a grain of sand. One molecuel? Then sand has it.

Answer 5

Yes that is what astronomers are fond of saying. They usually say than on all the beaches on Earth but I always wonder if they're including the deserts. I suppose it's a way of saying there are too many to count. Any way you look at it, it's an awfully large number.

Since you mentioned sand, ponder this. Every grain of sand will last longer than every man alive and every man that ever will be born. Immortality can be held in the palm of your hand. In the end only the little grains of sand will be left.

Answer 6

Hi, its about the same give or take a few million.
Some tribes around the world believe that each star is a grain of sand.

Answer 7

Vincent G, above has estimated at least 3.2E20 grain of sand on the earth and that there is an estimated 1E21 stars in the universe.

Are these two numbers coincidentally close in value???

Genesis 22:17 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV):

I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies...

God was talking to Abraham here.

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society
[NIV at IBS] [International Bible Society] [NIV at Zondervan] [Zondervan]

Answer 8

Stars.
Even if you only count the ones people have noticed.
There's an estimated 18,000,000,000,000,000,000 grains of sand. And an estimated 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the known universe. But the universe is bigger than is known.

Answer 9

Stars.

Answer 10

well, the universe is endless. So, I would say there are more stars. No matter how far to in the universe we go, there will still be more stars. The earth is a finite amount of space.

Answer 11

there r more stars in the universe than the grains in earth dude