{"id":677807,"date":"2026-09-08T02:25:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T02:25:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/677807\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T02:25:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T02:25:26","slug":"how-many-stars-are-there-in-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/677807\/","title":{"rendered":"How many stars are there in space?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Curious Kids<\/a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Exactly how many stars are in space? \u2013 MeeSong, Brookline, Massachusetts<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Look up at the sky on a clear night, and you’ll see thousands of stars \u2013 about 6,000 or so.<\/p>\n

But that’s only a tiny fraction of all the stars out there. The rest are too far away for us to see them.<\/p>\n

\"AThe universe, galaxies, stars<\/p>\n

Yet astronomers like me<\/a> have figured out how to estimate the total number of stars in the universe, which is everything that exists<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Scattered throughout the universe are galaxies<\/a> \u2013 clusters of stars, planets, gas and dust bunched together.<\/p>\n

Like people, galaxies are diverse. They come in different sizes and shapes.<\/p>\n

Earth is in the Milky Way<\/a>, a spiral galaxy; its stars cluster in spiral arms that swirl around the galaxy’s center.<\/p>\n

Other galaxies are elliptical<\/a> \u2013 kind of egg-shaped \u2013 and some are irregular<\/a>, with a variety of shapes.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Artist’s concept of a face-on look at the Milky Way. Note the spiral arms. NASA\/JPL<\/a><\/p>\n

\"ACounting the galaxies<\/p>\n

Before calculating the number of stars in the universe, astronomers first have to estimate the number of galaxies.<\/p>\n

To do that, they take very detailed pictures of small parts of the sky and count all the galaxies they see in those pictures.<\/p>\n

That number is then multiplied by the number of pictures needed to photograph the whole sky.<\/p>\n

The answer: There are approximately 2,000,000,000,000 galaxies in the universe \u2013 that’s 2 trillion.<\/p>\n

\"15,000<\/p>\n

15,000 galaxies appear as small dots and blots in this NASA photograph of the nighttime sky. Each galaxy contains billions of stars. NASA\/ESA\/P.Oesch\/M.Montes<\/a><\/p>\n

Counting the stars<\/p>\n

Astronomers don’t know exactly how many stars are in each of those 2 trillion galaxies. Most are so distant, there’s no way to tell precisely.<\/p>\n

But we can make a good guess at the number of stars in our own Milky Way. Those stars are diverse, too, and come in a wide variety of sizes and colors.<\/p>\n

Our Sun, a white star, is medium-size, medium-weight and medium-hot: 27 million degrees Fahrenheit at its center (15 million degrees Celsius).<\/p>\n

Bigger, heavier and hotter stars tend to be blue, like Vega<\/a> in the constellation Lyra. Smaller, lighter and dimmer stars are usually red, like Proxima Centauri<\/a>. Except for the Sun, it’s the closest star to us.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Artist’s concept of a red dwarf star with an exoplanet in orbit. About two-thirds of the stars in the Milky Way are red dwarfs. Exoplanet is the name for worlds outside our solar system. NASA\/ESA\/G.Bacon\/STScI<\/a><\/p>\n

An incredible number<\/p>\n

Red, white and blue stars give off different amounts of light. By measuring that starlight \u2013 specifically, its color and brightness \u2013 astronomers can estimate how many stars our galaxy holds.<\/p>\n

With that method, they discovered the Milky Way has about 100 billion stars \u2013 100,000,000,000.<\/p>\n

Now the next step. Using the Milky Way as our model, we can multiply the number of stars in a typical galaxy (100 billion) by the number of galaxies in the universe (2 trillion).<\/p>\n

The answer is an absolutely astounding number. There are approximately 200 billion trillion stars in the universe. Or, to put it another way, 200 sextillion.<\/p>\n

That’s 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000!<\/p>\n

The number is so big, it’s hard to imagine. But try this: It’s about 10 times the number of cups of water in all the oceans of Earth.<\/p>\n

Think about that the next time you’re looking at the night sky \u2013 and then wonder about what might be happening on the trillions of worlds<\/a> orbiting all those stars.<\/p>\n

NASA video. Our Milky Way galaxy: How big is space?<\/p>\n

Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com<\/a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.<\/p>\n

And since curiosity has no age limit \u2013 adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.<\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a>, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Brian Jackson<\/a>, Boise State University<\/a><\/p>\n

Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brian Jackson receives funding from NASA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[270],"tags":[286915,286914,18890,86304,155469,286912,18,6145,286913,2445,19,17,1024,2685,133,451,17135],"class_list":["post-677807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-200-sextillion","tag-approximately-200-billion-trillion","tag-artist","tag-boise-state-university","tag-brian-jackson","tag-comstock-images","tag-eire","tag-esa","tag-esa-p-oesch-m-montes","tag-getty-images","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-nasa","tag-national-park-service","tag-science","tag-space","tag-sun"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117233054075761902","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}