• Question: How many stars are in the galaxy?

    Asked by anon-219147 to Nicolas, Bella on 20 Jun 2019. This question was also asked by anon-219148, anon-219146.
    • Photo: Bella Boulderstone

      Bella Boulderstone answered on 20 Jun 2019:

      There are about 250 billion stars in the galaxy, but we really don’t know that number to any real precision, some stars are very faint and it’s hard to get a good look at them. There could be as many as 400 billion!

    • Photo: Nicolas Bonne

      Nicolas Bonne answered on 20 Jun 2019:

      We also have a problem! We’re looking at our galaxy from the inside out. Its shape like a disk (with a ball of stars in the middle) so if we look up or down, we can see through, but if we try to look through the centre, we can’t really see anything on the other side because there’s too much gas and dust, and the stars are too tightly grouped together.

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