Universe contains many more red dwarfs than previously thought

[Grep]

Now this I find really interesting!

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2010/pr201026.html

From the first paragraph:

"The biggest galaxies in the universe are elliptical galaxies. The largest of these hold over one trillion stars according to astronomical census takers, compared to 400 billion in our Milky Way. However, new research shows that elliptical galaxies actually hold five to ten times as many stars as previously believed. This means that the total number of stars in the universe is likely three times bigger than realized."

Wouldn't think this would make a big dent in dark matter calculations, but I figure it may impact models of galaxy and star formation significantly.

 

[Chronos]

It would make a dent, but, not do away with the need for dark matter. Present estimates suggest baryonic matter is about 1/6 of the total matter [dark + baryonic] content of the universe. Adding a large number of red dwarfs dwarves to the mix would not hugely impact the baryon budget as these stars are low mass compared to the sun. It was once postulated that brown dwarfs might also account for missing matter, but, this hypothesis also fell short. This paper does, however, suggest we may need to rethink stellar demographics of different kinds of galaxies.