Universe has two trillion more galaxies than previously thought

[Retired George]

Source: The Guardian

AFP in Paris
Thursday 13 October 2016 19.55 BST

There are a dizzying two trillion galaxies in the universe, up to 20 times more than previously thought, astronomers reported on Thursday. The surprising finding, based on 3D modeling of images collected over 20 years by the Hubble Space Telescope, was published in the Astronomical Journal.

Scientists have puzzled over how many galaxies the cosmos harbors at least since US astronomer Edwin Hubble showed in 1924 that Andromeda, a neighboring galaxy, was not part of our own Milky Way. But even in the era of modern astronomy, getting an accurate tally has proven difficult.

To begin with, there is only part of the cosmos where light given off by distant objects has had time to reach Earth. The rest is effectively beyond our reach. And even within this “observable universe”, current technology only allows us to glimpse 10% of what is out there, according to the new findings.

“It boggles the mind that over 90% of the galaxies in the universe have yet to be studied,” commented Christopher Conselice of the University of Nottingham, who led the study. “Who knows what interesting properties we will find when we observe these galaxies with the next generation of telescopes?” he said in a statement.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/oct/13/hubble-telescope-universe-galaxies-astronomy

---

And out of all those galaxies, with all those stars, and all those planets, we had to get stuck with this Tribble and its human host!

[Buckeye_Democrat]

1. And God made the Earth for the only life in the Universe!

[rug]

15. The universe is just teeming with life.

[Fast Walker 52]

23. haha, of course!

[Towlie]

26. The creation of all of those galaxies is casually summed up in Gen 1:16 as "He made the stars also."

[vdogg]

2. Yet some people think we're alone...

[rug]

16. Only those who have not spoken with aliens.

[vdogg]

19. Don't need to speak with aliens to understand probability.

The probability that we are the only time life has arisen, in a universe that contains TRILLIONS of galaxies, is infinitesimaly small.

[rug]

22. That's macroprobability.

To have the precise alignment of factors necessary for life, any life, is a statistical push.

It's no more than a version of an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters with an infinite amount of time producing Hamlet.

There may be a statistical argument for some form of life existing somewhere else but simple "trillions of galaxies" isn't it.

[MicaelS]

3. There are no more Tribbles.

The Kilngons exterminated them.

[packman]

4. No - The Trumpkons from the Xandu Galaxy

Built a wall to keep them out.

[cstanleytech]

7. Actually the Klingons only thought they exterminated them.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Trials_and_Tribble-ations_(episode)

[C Moon]

5. That's a lot of explosive batteries!

[rurallib]

6. makes me think of the genius teen in Indianapolis who said our calculations

of the age of the universe were way off. Said there was too much carbon in the universe for it to be only 13 billion years old.

I believe he may still be working on his calculations but I think he hinted it may be closer to 35 billion years old.

If your curious about him I think his name is Jacob Barnett.

[tblue37]

9. He is a cool kid with autism who is also a genius cosmologist. I read his mom's book

about him, called The Spark. I recommend it.

[rug]

17. Fascinating. Thanks for the info.

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_L1_RoAAAAAJ

[olddad56]

8. wow, just when I think I had counted them all, there is more.

bummer

[randome]

21. Start over.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]No squirrels were harmed in the making of this post. Yet.[/center][/font][hr]

[MicaelS]

10. If Bush had done the calculations...

It would have Two Brazzilion.

[airplaneman]

11. Universe has two trillion more galaxies than previously thought

so how many were previously thought?
-Airplane

[StevieM]

25. I think that they had thought there were 100 billion galaxies. (eom)

[GreydeeThos]

12. Is it worse than we thought?

[Helen Borg]

13. "It boggles the mind that over 90% of the galaxies in the universe have yet to be studied,”

Not really... It boggles the mind that anyone would think that we can put a percentage to it, 90%. Really? But how can we know that?

[molova]

14. How do they know there are even more than that?

How do we know that we will finding more, and more, and more, and always be short? What if there is an infinite number of galaxies?

What if there is no end to the Universe? Is that possible?

[Buckeye_Democrat]

20. There is a horizon that we can't see beyond.

It's somewhat like looking at the horizon of the Earth. You can only see so far, even in the most clear conditions and with the best magnification, because the curvature of the Earth prevents you from seeing more of it. There's more of the planet beyond the horizon, of course, but you can't see it from your vantage point.

The horizon of our observable universe is caused by the finite time since the Big Bang, allowing us to only see light that has traveled less time than the age of the universe.

The horizon is actually the Cosmic Microwave Background, when the early universe was no longer opaque to light. That happened a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang. That light was very energetic (short-wavelength), but the expansion of space since it was emitted has "stretched" (red-shifted) the light to long-wavelength microwaves.

Due to the expansion of space (which can exceed the speed of light over large distances), there can indeed be parts of the universe that are beyond the horizon. Any light emitted by those faraway objects would take longer than the age of the universe to reach us, so we can't see them.

The "speed limit" of light applies to anything with mass/energy traveling through space, not space itself.

[johnnyrocket]

18. And we're stuck in the one galaxy with Donald Fucking Trump.

[Rex]

24. Well then we will set an extra plate at the table.

Looks like the universes just got a hole lot bigly!