So Carol, your sense of the relative numbers of each was right. Now, at the HIGHEST estimation for grains of sand, and at the LOWEST estimation for stars in the universe, grains of sand may win. More or Less tries to count the nearly uncountable. Schools' can join in too. Sand grains: ~7.5e18 Stars (low estimate): 2e11 * 8e10 = 16e21. Perhaps you’ve heard this before: There are more stars in the universe than all the grains of sand in all the beaches, desserts and sandboxes on Earth. That gives ~2000 stars per grain of sand for the low estimate of the number of stars. #ThatsVillage. That’s one heck of a zoom lens! Still the old cliché seems vindicated. Use these social-bookmarking links to share Are there more stars in the universe than grains of sand on Earth?. Perhaps surprisingly, there are more atoms in a human body than all of the stars, sand, and insects … But more likely, there … But chances are small that that is the case. From the nearest calculations, there appear to be more stars than grains of sand. If we had a sphere bigger than the Earth, it would be an easy answer, but no such luck. If you were to make a pile of that many atoms… guess how big it would be. Is this possible?” Awesome question, and a great excuse to do some math. By almost every calculation and estimate, yes, there are more stars than there are grains of sand on earth. It may hurt your brain to think about it, but it seems that the answer is likely to be yes, or at least the numbers are roughly in the same ballpark. This type of sand measures about a half millimeter across. "It was about a factor of 10 smaller, but there's easily a factor of 10 error in both of those estimates so it could just as easily be the other way around.". “I once read that there were more grains on sand on Earth than there were stars in the universe. The Trifid Nebula (Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA). For some “back of the napkin” math we can guess that there are more stars in our Universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches of Earth. Be a citizen scientistCan you volunteer some time to be a citizen scientist? It is estimated that there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on earth. How big is 10 sextillion atoms? What you're seeing when you look up at the night sky is a jumble of the lights of stars given off over the ccourse of the past few billion years. Press alt + / to open this menu. But you can guesstimate. All of a sudden I'm really beginning to feel small and very insignificant ! See no ads on this site, see our videos early, special bonus material, and much more. Well, relatively at least. #ThatsVillage. news and features web feed, International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research. Surely, comparing the number of stars in the heavens to the sand on the seashore would be an absurd conjecture for a mere human author to make 6,000 years ago. We, as a species, just need to be gungho and just start taking space seriously again. At the high end, it’s 200 sextillion. So, there’s the answer. What will happen when this huge Antarctic ice shelf cracks? I must express my disappointment at those who come on and say 'way more' or 'do the math' while tallpaul presents a website which includes the math and receives a thumbs down. This question comes from Sheldon Grimshaw. There are NOT more planets or stars in any one galaxy than grains of sand on all the beaches-- not even close. number of SiO2 “molecules” in the sand grain, and then multiply by 3 (1 By almost every calculation and estimate, yes, there are more stars than there are grains of sand on earth. Or am I missing something…? But more likely, there are 5 to 10 times more stars than there are grains of sand on all the world’s beaches. If there are as many stars in the entire universe as atoms in 1/4 of a dust mite, then the magnitude of accomplishment in inspecting individual atoms becomes more apparent. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. If so then multiplying the number of stars in our galaxy by the number of galaxies isn't correct. So even though it's an impossible question to answer definitively, it seems that the mind-bending possibility of so many stars existing in the universe is actually … Visit Galaxy Explorer and start classifying galaxies for astronomers as part of a real research project. But more likely, there are 5 to 10 times more stars than there are grains of sand on all the world’s beaches. At least that's the conclusion the people who did calculations on the matter came up with. The number of the shadow, The Sea Arrow, The coast of the whole of the world. So, there’s your answer, Sheldon. It should also be pointed out there though we can give a pretty good estimate of how many stars are in the galaxy, the number of planets remains a mystery. Use this form to email 'Are there more stars in the universe than grains of sand on Earth?' If you multiply stars by galaxies, at the low end, you get 10 billion billion stars, or 10 sextillion stars in the Universe – a 1 followed by 22 zeros. There are about the same number of stars in the observable universe as there are sand grains in all of Earth’s beaches. Facebook. Are there more stars in the universe than grains of sand on Earth? For some “back of the napkin” math we can guess that there are more stars in our Universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches of Earth. X10^18 (5 quintillion) atoms, using Avogadro’s number. Oh, about 200 billion billion more stars than grains of sand. Are there really more stars in our universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth? Given we know that the universe is 13.8 billion years old, we can assume that we exist in a sphere 13.8 billion light years in volume. This might be close. But it's all a thing of scale. So, if the low end estimate for the number of stars matches the high end estimate for the number of grains of sand, it’s the same. This was quite a mathematical challenge! If there are already more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on the beaches, think about how many planets there are. How do they compare to the number of grains of sand on the collective beaches of an entire planet? That's 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars! There are a lot of sand grains on Earth. Si, 2 O atoms). I’m going to follow the estimates and calculations made by Dr. Jason Marshall, aka, the Math Dude. While there in fact are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all of earth’s beaches – as the decades-old comparison correctly states – there could also be more insects than the number of grains of sand, if the low estimate of sand is accurate. read more First, the universe is not infinite. There could be 2x to 10x more planets than stars. How big a sand grain contains 1e22 (10 sextillion atoms)? 1 billion x 30 x 10 x 356 million x 100% = 1.068 x 10 20 grains of sand Compared to the estimate of stars in the Universe, that's about 5 times as many stars in the Universe as grains of sand in all the beaches in the world! Wolfram Alpha says the ratio is between 0.2 and 4000 (gesture big then gesture small) 4 times smaller than a dust mite. there are more stars bcoz sand on earth is more limited than the stars in the sky.. but the logic is that you said that stars in the sky and sands on the earth.. there is a possiblity that stars that a person can see in the sky is lesser than what grains of sand can be seen on the earth.. Hmm… this gives new perspective on viewing the microscopic world! Jump to. "That was almost harder to work out than the number of stars," Driver says. So Carol, your sense of the relative numbers of each was right. 10 sextillion of anything does sound like a whole lot. He found the total size of the Sahara, the average depth of sand across the Sahara and from that was able to calculate the approximate number of grains of sand in the Sahara. This is based upon estimations as precise counts are impossible to obtain. to someone you know: Hi, you estimate the number of grains of sand making all the beaches but what the score if you take all sand on Earth including deserts and rivers? Sand grains: ~7.5e18 Stars (low estimate): 2e11 * 8e10 = 16e21. (1e22 / (avogadro’s number) * 60.08 / 3 / 2.6 /(4/3 * pi))^(1/3)*2 = 0.625 cm diameter, or about a 1/4 inch diameter. And even after the invention of the telescope, for the next 3 centuries mankind only knew of several billion stars — still not enough to compare the stars in the heavens to the sand on the … Or at least it is consistent with the method we used to arrive at this conclusion. Sand constitutes a major fraction of the makeup of Earth. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Short Answer: Using this analysis method, there might possibly be more grains of sand on the world’s beaches and ocean bottoms than there are stars in our (visible) Universe. "Once I got all that I could put all those numbers together and got a number that was remarkably close to the figure for the number of stars, but just a little bit less," he says. If so then multiplying the number of stars … Are your 'sea legs' in your brain or your muscles? Would a 1 and 22 zero’s not be 10.000 billion billion? One scientist made the statement that this unfathomable number is "more than 10 times the grains of sand in every beach and desert on earth!" For a 0.5mm diameter sphere of quartz, typical for sand, I get about 5 Quartz is about For some “back of the napkin” math we can guess that there are more stars in our Universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches of Earth. So it could be 2.5 sextillion or there could be 10 sextillion grains of sand on all the world’s beaches. So, is there that much sand on all the beaches, everywhere, on this planet? More or Less tries to count the nearly uncountable. Short Answer: Using this analysis method, there might possibly be more grains of sand on the world’s beaches and ocean bottoms than there are stars in our (visible) Universe. 2.6 g/cm^3 and 60.08 gm/mole, and then there should be Avogadro’s Its a cycle that never ends. "There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on Earth". Although, isn't the Milky Way on the medium to big size as far as galaxies go? Which means, a single grain of sand has more atoms than there are stars in the Universe. The fact that it contains so many sand grains compared to the number of stars in the sky is pretty awe-inspiring. "I've heard that there are more stars in our Universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth. But it's all a thing of scale. Are there more grains of sand than there are stars in the sky? The Universe "That made it easier; I then just had to work out how many grains of sand are in the Sahara, and I didn't have to worry about every beach on the planet," Driver recalls. 4/3 * pi * 0.025^3 * 2.6 * avogadro’s number / 60.08 * 3 = 5e18 atoms/sand grain. written and performed by Mark Freiter01 there are more stars than grains of sand on earth02 CRUSH03 FOXHILL FUNK04 I'M NOT GETTING MARRIED “I’ve heard that there are more stars in our Universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth. If you took 10 sextillion grains of sand, put them into a ball, it would have a radius of 10.6 kilometers. If the universe is infinite, then how is this possible?” ????? Astronomers actually set out to answer this question about a decade ago. This question comes from Sheldon Grimshaw. Or at least it is consistent with the method we used to arrive at this conclusion. Stars has a number of plot elements that are similar to certain elements in Triton.Most notable is the presence in both novels of the General Information service, although it is more sophisticated in Stars (one need merely think a question for GI to place the knowledge in one's mind, as opposed to Triton's GI which takes questions on machines similar to modern computers). As we learned in a previous video, there are 100 to 400 billion stars in the Milky Way and more than 100 billion galaxies in the Universe – maybe as many as 500 billion. American astronomer Carl Sagan once stated that “there are more stars in our Universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches on Earth”. So, there’s your answer, Sheldon. That’s 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars! Oh, one more thing. How the sun messes with your TV, radio and internet twice a year. Are there more grains of sand than there are stars in the sky? 8000 grains in one cubic centimeter. There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand really? So even though it's an impossible question to answer definitively, it seems that the mind-bending possibility of so many stars existing in the universe is actually true. According to Jason, there about 700 trillion cubic meters of beach of Earth, and that works out to around 5 sextillion grains of sand. 1 CARL SAGAN’S CLAIM: There are more stars in the known universe than grains of sand on all the beaches of the planet I've read that there are more stars than grains of sand on beaches on earth but probably more grains of sand on this whole planet than stars in the universe. "Then let's assume, on average, this is a typical mass star that gives out the typical amount of light, so if I know that a portion of the universe is generating this amount of light, I can now say how many stars that would equate to.". Podcast (audio): Download (Duration: 3:32 — 3.2MB). The astronomer Carl Sagan famously said that there were more stars in our Universe than grains of sand on the Earth’s beaches. So, there’s your answer, Sheldon. According to some estimates, there are 4.8 x 1022 grains of sand on Earth, and an estimated 5 x 1022 stars in the universe. But there's a catch: the universe is potentially infinite in size. I don’t want to see a dust mite 4 times larger than that!!! But chances are small that that is the case. Obviously, grains and stars can’t be counted, not literally. It’d be about…. FINAL EPISODE: Bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres are giant salt pans. Now, at the HIGHEST estimation for grains of sand, and at the LOWEST estimation for stars in the universe, grains of sand may win. "You have to assume that you can have one type of star represent all types of stars," says astronomer Simon Driver, Professor at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research in Western Australia and one of the scientists who worked on the question. Instead of grains of sand, what about atoms? The scientists started by measuring the luminosity density of a section of the universe — this is a measurement of how much light is in that space. And for the high end of our estimate, 200 sextillion, it would be 72 kilometers across. Interesting but kind of hard to do the math on that, never been an Algebra guy or a big fan of the whole estimation game, but interesting to wonder, Join our 836 patrons! Luckily, someone suggested starting with the Sahara Desert, which is home to around half of all the grains of sand on Earth. So, if the low end estimate for the number of stars matches the high end estimate for the number of grains of sand, it’s the same. 1 billion x 30 x 10 x 356 million x 100% = 1.068 x 10 20 grains of sand Compared to the estimate of stars in the Universe, that's about 5 times as many stars in the Universe as grains of sand in all the beaches in the world! That gives ~2000 stars per grain of sand for the low estimate of the number of stars. By clicking 'Send to a friend' you agree ABC Online is not responsible for the content contained in your email message. Professor Simon Driver spoke with Bianca Nogrady. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. After all these calculations and caveats, Driver and colleagues came up with a figure of seven followed by 22 zeros, or 70 thousand million, million, million stars in the observable universe. Email or Phone: Password: Forgot account? But of course, this is just an estimate. If we opt to limit our scope to the number of stars that are observable with the naked eye, on a clear night from Earth, then the grains of … They then used this measurement to estimate the number of stars required to create that amount of light. The question left people surprised at how big the universe is considering that the sand along the earth’s coastlines amounts to trillions of tones. The question is, and I bet you asked it when you were 8 years old and sitting on a beach with your parents: Which are there more of — grains of sand on the Earth or stars in the sky? Jason reminds us that his math is a rough estimate, and he could be off by a factor of 2 either way. Oh, one more thing. The astronomer Carl Sagan famously said that there were more stars in our Universe than grains of sand on the Earth’s beaches. Carl Sagan wrote in his book Cosmos that there are more stars in the universe than all the sand grains on Earth. We'll get one problem taken care of, another one pops up, that gets taken care of, another one pops up. Lightning, tornadoes and mice: the science of bushfires, Astronomers detect ultra-faint galaxy from the very early Universe, 'Shockingly' cold gas cloud surrounding early giant galaxy surprises scientists, Bright radio burst sheds light on Universe's cosmic web, Terzan 5 'an extraordinary cosmic relic' from early universe. You could put 20 grains of sand packed in side-by-side to make a centimeter. Tags: astronomy-space, the-universe, stars. Join us at patreon.com/universetoday. Ah, but that’s not how the cliché is commonly phrased. How huge would something with that massive quantity of anything be? But more likely, there are 5 to 10 times more stars than there are grains of sand on all the world’s beaches. This one is prehistoric question, but this time with a surprise twist. Now consider this: In Genesis 22:17, God told Abraham "...in blessing I will bless you, and in multiplying I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which is on the seashore..." For some “back of the napkin” math we can guess that there are more stars in our Universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches of Earth. But more likely, there are 5 to 10 times more stars than there are grains of sand on all the world’s beaches. Home › Chit Chat Forum › Are there more stars than grains of sand on the Earth's beaches? There are 10 times more stars in the night sky than grains of sand in the world's deserts and beaches, scientists say. Get ABC Science’s weekly newsletter Science Updates. That's 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars versus 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 grains of sand! Wolfram Alpha says the ratio is between 0.2 and 4000 Read more at www.npr.org That's 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars versus 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 grains of sand! Prior to the invention of the telescope in the 1600s, stargazers could only count a few hundred stars. There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on the world’s beaches, more stars in the universe than seconds of time that have passed since Earth formed, more stars than words & sounds ever uttered by all humans who have ever lived The day we cease the exploration of the cosmos is the day we threaten the continuing of our species Read more at www.npr.org It's a tricky problem to solve, but it's slightly easier if you throw in a couple of qualifiers — that we're talking about stars in the observable universe; and grains of sand on the entire planet, not just the beaches. However we also know that because of its age, we exist in a bubble within that infiniteness, and that bubble is called the 'observable' universe. So what about grains of sand on Earth? You’d need to estimate the average volume of a sandy beach and the average amount of the world’s coastlines which are beaches. It would be like looking at our entire universe and resolving just Earth’s sun, Sol! Pretty gigantic. Luckily, someone suggested starting with the Sahara Desert, which is home to around half of all the grains of sand on Earth. "We know that it has a finite age — we know it started 13.8 billion years ago — but spatially, in terms of its extent, it could be infinite," Driver says. https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2015/08/19/4293562.htm? It is estimated that there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on earth. “That was almost harder to work out than the number of stars,” Driver says. Much smaller than the number of stars in the observable universe. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window), Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window), Elon Musk Briefs Universe Today & Media ahead of Revolutionary Falcon 9 Blastoff, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Get involved in August and you could win a wi-fi telescope. So, if the low end estimate for the number of stars matches the high end estimate for the number of grains of sand, it’s the same. Although, isn't the Milky Way on the medium to big size as far as galaxies go? View Stars and Sand.pdf from CHEM 105 at Brigham Young University. Are there more stars in the universe or more grains of sand on the Earth? Also; climate change slowing the planet's rotation, and searching for the universe's missing matter. Sections of this page. The stars you -see- in the sky are not the same as the stars that are actually up there in space... mostly because they are all at the very least light-years away... and at the most light-aeons away. Accessibility Help. These are mind bogglingly huge numbers. Now equipped with an estimate of the number of stars within a section of the universe, the next challenge was to work out the size of the universe.