Hi halejrb and thanks for this great question,
What is the number of stars in the milky way? This is a fascinating
question for an astronomer and one that is difficult to answer as I
will explain.
NASA tries to answer your very question here:
“Why are there so many estimates for the number of stars in the Milky
Way?”
“The total mass estimates are pertty hard to make to within a factor
of 2 because we can only reliably measure the mass interior to the
orbit of the sun. Typical estimates give you about 160 billion solar
masses, but if by various means you estimate the mass outside the
orbit of the sun, you get numbers up to 250 billion solar masses or
so. But since most stars are smaller than the sun in mass, the actual
number of stars that these mass estimates represent can vary anywhere
from 250 billion to as much as 1 trillion depending on what
assumptions you want to make for the number of small stars this mass
represents. “
http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/a11273.html
So you would think that NASA is a good source for your answer?
Have a look at this explanation:
“Astronomers don't actually count the stars in the galaxy, they really
just try and figure out how much matter there is in the galaxy. Then,
from studying how many stars are of different types, they can guess
what the average mass is for a typical star in the galaxy. Dividing
the average mass into the total mass for the galaxy gives a rough idea
of how many stars there are.”
“you get that there are about 100,000,000,000 stars (or 100 billion)”
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/lfs/QA/number_of_Stars.txt
If you could see (through a telescope or detect by radio telescope)
all the stars in the galaxy (which is the Milky Way) then you could
have a fairly accurate number. However in fact a lot of the stars
that make up the Milky Way are just not visible because they are
relatively small or they are behind other stars, so we have to make a
best guess which, as you can see from the sites above, the estimates
vary from 100 billion to 1 Trillion. An even bigger discrepancy than
you originally thought I’m afraid.
The truth is that to estimate the answer to any degree of accuracy is
impossible and so astronomers have to take “a best guess” using the
type of calculations above, based not on how many stars they can see
but on the mass of stars.
The discovery that the galaxy is separate from the rest of the night
sky was discovered by Galileo in 1609, and it has only been recently
(cosmically speaking) that we have realized that some of the stars we
see aren’t stars but are other galaxies.
As to my qualifications to comment on this question: I am an amateur
astronomer of 20 years in the UK and (light polluted) Rio de Janeiro
investigating the possibility of building my own Dobsonian telescope
in the mountains above Rio, however getting the mirrors here is
proving to be very expensive!
If you are considering building your own telescope I personally
recommend the book “Build Your Own telescope” by Richard Berry
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0943396697/002-6014218-4904801
Search Terms used
"the number of stars in the milky"
://www.google.com/search?q=+%22the+number+of+stars+in+the+milky%22&hl=en&lr=&as_qdr=all&start=10&sa=N
and personal knowledge!
I hope this explanation answers your question, and if it does please
rate my answer (with stars!)
Clear Skies !
THX1138 |
