#Calculations May 26

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For the month of May 2024 several of us are taking on the 30-Day Astronomy Coach4aday Challenge. The simple concept is to learn something about the cosmos each day. For May 26th it is on the CALCULATIONS of stars.

If you read about the number of stars, you will often encounter a wide range of numbers. Today’s post is on the difficulty of making those calculations.

Astronomy Challenge Suggested Guidelines

Like previous challenges there are no hard and fast rules to participate. There are a few suggested guidelines.

1. Each day in May learn something new about our universe either by reading or observation.
2. Share that knowledge with others
3. If so inclined use the hash tag #Coach4adayChallenge on social media platforms

May 26th-Calculations of Stars

Today’s post is an idea that has been stolen from my fellow 30-Day Challenge friend Jaclyn Donovan. Two weeks ago, on Facebook she posted the following:

“The number of stars in the Milky Way is probably higher than the number of humans that have ever been born.

Ask an astronomer how many stars there are in the Milky Way and the answer will range from ‘hundreds of billions’ to an approximate value: ‘about 100 billion’; ‘300 billion’; ‘500 billion’. There must be a correct answer, so why does the value vary so much?

Unfortunately, figuring out the number of stars in our Galaxy isn’t just a matter of counting. Most of the Milky Way is obscured from view and the regions we do see are so vast and distant that individual stars aren’t readily identified, even with powerful telescopes. Determining the population of the Galaxy relies upon observations, assumptions and informed estimates.

Curiously, anthropologists are more confident about the total number of human beings that have ever lived – about 110 billion. So, we can say that there are probably more stars in the Galaxy than every human that has ever been born!