With the help of the Hubble Space Telescope and data collected by other observatories, scientists have finally completed the most accurate galaxy count in the observable universe to date. Even if we do not go into specific numbers, we can conclude that humanity was very much mistaken about the number of these very galaxies.
New calculations indicate that the observable universe - the section of the universe that we can see from Earth and near-Earth orbit - actually contains 10, or even 20 times more galaxies than previously thought. If we talk about rough numbers, we are talking about something between one and two trillion galaxies. Past reports, however, spoke of a much more modest amount - about 100 billion. This, in turn, forces us to reconsider the number of stars contained in the visible Universe. Now we are talking about about 700 sextillion (7 followed by 23 zeros).
And this is only the observable universe. Since the cosmos has been constantly expanding since its appearance about 13.8 billion years ago, the exact size of the Universe is unknown to us, and, therefore, we can not observe all of its objects. Our visible Universe is a kind of invisible ball. Everything beyond it is unknown to us. The thing is that the light from the objects located there simply has not yet had time to reach us. In general, it is very difficult (if not impossible) to know how many galaxies are actually outside our observational limits.
An international team of astronomers led by Christopher Conselis of the University of Nottingham helped arrive at the new figures using Hubble deep-sky images and analysis of data collected by other astronomers. Based on the images, the researchers created a three-dimensional model that allowed scientists to accurately calculate the number of galaxies at different stages in the history of the universe.
Scientists have found that the early universe was literally seeded with myriads of tiny galaxies, which over time, merging with other such tiny galaxies, began to form the larger galaxies that we can observe today. The results of the latest scientific research, which will be published in the Astrophysical Journal, indicate that we do not see even a small part of what is in the universe.
“Just imagine, we have never seen more than 90 percent of the galaxy in the Universe. Who knows what amazing discoveries await us with the commissioning of new generations of telescopes!”- comments Conselis.
NIKOLAY KHIZHNYAK