Are there really more stars in the universe then grains of sand ?

Question

i find that hard to believe...just a handful of sand is a million grains ...am i wrong?

Answer 1

Im gonna have to go with there being more stars. If the universe goes on for infinity, I'm guessing the stars do too.

... now if we're talking all the grains of sand in the universe, and not just Earth, then I'm going to have to go with grains of sand.

I think stars are made of sand anyway. Hold a handful of stars in your hand and get back to me.

Answer 2

It's hard to say because there's no defined number for either grains of sand or number of stars. I would have to say there are more stars in the universe based on the fact that the universe is so many billions of times larger than the Earth (billions of times larger is probably a vast underestimate). I can say that there is a finite number of grains of sand on Earth and scientists can't define the end of the Universe.

Answer 3

There may be, but the numbers are only estimates. Nobody can count the all the grains of sand or all the stars. But if you make some reasonable estimates, then it does appear to be true that there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on Earth.

Answer 4

lets crunch some numbers.

Our Milky Way Galaxy is a fairly average sized galaxy. There are galaxies that are 1% the mass of the Milky Way, and there are galaxies of which the Milky Way is 1% of its mass. So we can agree that the Milky Way is a nice, safe medium to use.

There are approximately 400 billion stars in the Milky Way alone. In our night sky, we can make out about 5,000 of them.

And about 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe, which is an extremely conservative estimate that dates back to the 1970's.

so 400,000,000,000 x 100,000,000,000 = 40,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the observable universe.

The total coastline of the world is about 1,000,000 kilometres, of which about 36 percent is sandy. So there are 360,000 kilometers of sandy beaches on Earth. We will assume 50 meters width and 4 meters depth. There are 8,000 grains of sand per cubic centimeter (which means you get at best 50,000 grains of sand in a handful.) Do the math, and you get 600,000,000,000,000,000,000 grains of sand on the Earth.

There is some variation, such as sand dunes, as well as extragalactic stars and star clusters, so we will assume that the variation cancels each other out.

600,000,000,000,000,000,000 grains of sand on the Earth
40,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the universe

in other words, for every 1 grain of sand, there are 66 stars in the universe. Think about that next time you are on a beach that stretches from horizon to horizon...

Answer 5

The estimated SIZE of the universe is about 150 BILLION light years wide!

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_040524.html

The Milky Way galaxy contains over a billion stars......... there are BILLIONS of galaxies we can observe in our telescopes!........and billions of others too far away to resolve!

The answer is ---------- YES! more stars than all the grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth!

Answer 6

when you consider that the known universe is some billions of galaxies; each one containing some millions of stars:and the known distance of the oldest stars is 13and a half billion light years away you may get the idea that the are is a lot of stars out there.

Answer 7

Maybe if you count the sand on Earth.

But what about all the grains on all the beaches on all the resorts on all the planets on all......

Answer 8

well, depends on whether those stars have sand on them...

Answer 9

yes

Answer 10

Nope.