Is it possible to count the stars?
Well, yes and no. If a very patient person went out night after night, she could count up all the stars she could see. But if she then looked through a telescope and tried to count again, she would find many more stars, because the telescope would help her see faint stars that she couldn't see with her naked eye. If she got an even bigger telescope, she would see even more stars!
It is possible for astronomers to guess how many stars there are, though. First, we can use physics to make a good guess about how many stars there are in our galaxy (about 100 billion). Then we can make a guess about how many galaxies there are in the visible universe (also about 100 billion). Then we just multiply these numbers together to estimate the number of stars in the visible universe - ten thousand billion billion stars!
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Related questions:
- How many moles of stars are in the known universe?
- How many stars are there in our Galaxy (Milky Way)?
- How many stars can I see?
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