How many stars are there in the galaxy?

In the end, it comes down to an estimate. In one calculation, the Milky Way has a mass of about 100 billion solar masses, so it is easiest to translate that to 100 billion stars. read more

Editor's Note: This story was updated to correct the scientific notation for the number of stars in the galaxy. 100 million is 10 to the eighth power, not 10 to the seventh power. The total number of stars in the universe is therefore 10 to the 20th power, not 10 to the 19th power. read more

And so, if you multiply the number of stars in our galaxy by the number of galaxies in the Universe, you get approximately 10 24 stars. That’s a 1 followed by twenty-four zeros. That’s a septillion stars. But there could be more than that. read more