More stars in the Milky Way or galaxies in the universe?

[Loren Booda]

Do you think there are more stars in our Milky Way galaxy, or galaxies in the observable universe?

 

[neutrino]

Not at all. Estimates suggest that there as many galaxies in the observable universe as there are stars in the Milky Way.

Edit: I guess I misread the question. I thought it was "are there more stars in the MW than galaxies in the universe."

Yes, it's too close to tell. I agree with Dave.

 

[russ_watters]

I don't know that this really needs to be a poll - we have good evidence for the number of observable galaxies: the Hubble UDF. By extrapolation, if we repeated the HUDF and covered the entire sky, we'd see about 150 billion galaxies. It is believed that the Milky Way contains sonewhere in the neighborhood 200 to 400 billion stars.

So we're not there yet, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if we can peek just a little deeper and get a whole lot more.

 

[DaveC426913]

I think that the two being within the same order of magnitude would constitute 'too close to tell'.

 

[MadScientist 1000]

More galaxies in the observable universe. Why?

As time progresses, we will be able to see more light from the furthest galaxies, numbering in the billions, and steadily increasing, compared to the number of stars in the Milky Way, which are decreasing.

 

[Nexus555]

While Hubble did do an excellent job, I still think there are more galaxies in the observable universe than stars in our galaxy. There will be greater telescopes in the future, which will look even deeper into the cosmos.