how many stars does a regular galaxy have?

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by pluto2, Dec 31, 2008.

  1. pluto2 Banned Valued Senior Member

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    How many stars does a regular galaxy contain? Also what is the average galaxy diameter and thickness?
     
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  3. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    There are billions of stars in every galaxy. Depending upon the type of galaxy their dimensions change.
     
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  5. pluto2 Banned Valued Senior Member

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    So dwarf galaxies and dwarf irregular galaxies also contain billion of stars?
     
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  7. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Typical galaxies range from dwarfs with as few as ten million stars up to giants with one trillion stars, all orbiting a common center of mass.
     
  8. orcot Valued Senior Member

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    If all sand grains were 1mm in diameter and there are 7E22 stars in the universe it would take up 3.7E13m² this would cover the world in roughly 7.2 centimeters of sand (give or take)
     
  9. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    And how many angels can you get on the head of a needle?
     
  10. Burada Registered Senior Member

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    What's a regular galaxy? I'm not sure if our galaxy is regular or not. What about the super elliptical galaxy M-87?
     
  11. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    What the guy above said. What is a regular galaxy? It's not like asking for a regular coke.
     
  12. w1z4rd Valued Senior Member

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    I think I read somewhere a regular galaxy has around 200 - 400 billion stars
     
  13. Burada Registered Senior Member

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    Give or take a 100 billions stars or so? A hundred billion stars is a drop in the bucket for galaxies. Right?
     
  14. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Well there's the problem you see.

    Space... is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is...
     
  15. Burada Registered Senior Member

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    Just out of curiosity, how 'big' is it? Some number in lightyears would do nicely, just in case I want to plan a trip someday.
     
  16. EntropyAlwaysWins TANSTAAFL. Registered Senior Member

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    As usual Hitch Hikers says is perfectly.

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  17. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    As I quoted in post #4 in this thread, Wikipedia says that galaxies that are considered "typical" have a range of 10^7 to 10^12 stars. So 100 billion is a little on the high side but still in the "typical" range. But I really have no idea how they're using the word "typical." It could mean three sigmas.
     
  18. John Connellan Valued Senior Member

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    I think the milky way is about 100,000 light-years across
     
  19. eburacum45 Valued Senior Member

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    I've made this image using Celestia and Gimp;

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    400 billion stars is an estimate quoted in Wikipedia, and since there are innumerable very small red dwarfs and probably even more brown dwarfs, this number might be on the low side.
     
  20. Burada Registered Senior Member

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    400 billion +100 billion / - 0? Typical galaxy......Right?
     
  21. zagacious Registered Member

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    It is Awesome

    Our galaxy possess two hundred billion stars and it's one hundred thousand light years across. In two billion years time possibly it could even collide with Andromeda which is three million light years away. It's just awesome to me.

    The universe is suppose to be expanding, does anyone know whether it will continue expanding and end up shredding everything into it's constituent atoms or will it gradually slow down again and maybe contract?
     
  22. John Connellan Valued Senior Member

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    The most popular current idea is that it will expand forever isn't it?
     
  23. Vern Registered Senior Member

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    Yes; but you have to give up using the physics we know about to make it so. They claim the universe is about 150 billion light years across and it got that way in about 13 billion years. You can't do that without a whole lot of faith.
     

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