Optical instruments that close the distance to the stars - binoculars, amateur and high-power professional telescopes - open up an endless stream of celestial bodies... To the naked eye, far from the lights of big cities, about two thousand stars open. This is one third of the total visible in the two hemispheres of the planet. Out of sight are the stars of the opposite hemisphere and those located near the horizon - where the transparency of the atmosphere decreases.

Stars named

The brightest and largest stars have several: each people of the Earth gave them their names. The names of about 300 of them have survived to our times - with Sumerian, Akkadian, Coptic, Semitic, Greek, Roman and, of course, Arabic roots. However, on the maps of the starry sky, the luminaries are designated by letters of the Greek alphabet with belonging to. The lower the brightness of the star, the further from the beginning of the alphabet denoting it.

The star Deneb ("tail" in Arabic), the "alpha" of the constellation Cygnus, has several "namesakes" - from the constellations Cetus (Deneb Kaitos), Leo (Denebola), Scorpio (Deneb Akrab), Dolphin and Eagle.

About two dozen astronomers who discovered or described them are named. These are Barnard's flying star in the constellation Ophiuchus and Kaptein's star in the constellation Painter, invisible to the naked eye and discovered using powerful optical devices. Herschel's garnet star in the constellation Cepheus is available for observations in the Northern Hemisphere. The names of astronomers Van Maanen, Krzeminsky, Przybylsky, Popper, Leuten, Tigarden also accompany the mention of the stars they described. However, this one is unofficial. It is hard to remember how many pioneers in other fields of science share the same humility.

Cunning founders of companies offering to name a star after someone who wants to pay money for it successfully make money out of thin air. There will be no information about the name in the official star atlases, and only two parties will know about the existence of the certificate of assigning a new name to the star - the one who paid and accepted the payment.

Unnamed stars

After about 6,000 stars visible to the naked eye, there are objects visible through binoculars. With this increase, the number of stars rises to 200,000. According to the magnitude system developed by the ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus of Nicea and improved today, these are stars of magnitude 9-10.

The stars are 11-12 magnitudes in the eyepiece of a modest amateur telescope, and their number rises to 2 million. The powerful telescope allows objects up to magnitude 15-16, increasing their number by over 100 million.

It is believed that the number of stars up to magnitude 20 is in the tens of billions. However, not all of them are in constant visual accessibility (through telescopes, of course), periodically covered by clouds of cosmic dust. How many stars are still at a greater distance can only be found out approximately.

The most powerful telescope of the Earth, a complex of 4 main and 4 auxiliary optical telescopes, operates in the Atacama Desert (Chile). It is called that - Very Large Telescope, or VLT.

According to the calculations of astronomers

Once Khoja Nasreddin was asked how many stars there are in the sky. He replied: This question has been of interest to me for a long time. But I think that it can be solved only if you go up to the sky yourself and count the stars ...

The sage was right, albeit in part. Modern satellites and telescopes are discovering more and more distant galaxies full of new and countless stars, and it seems that there will be no end to this ... But despite this, the answer to the question: How many stars are there in the sky? even to specialists it is not easy to give.

Indeed, the stars are not distributed throughout the Universe by a uniform "suspension", they are collected in vast groups - galaxies. For example, our Sun is located in the Milky Way galaxy, and only there are about 100 billion stars in it. But there are trillions of galaxies in the universe alone!

The ancient sage said that trying to count the stars is tantamount to counting all the grains of sand on all the shores on the whole earth. But if we do not need an exact number, but a rough estimate is enough, then we can take satellite images, establish an approximate total area of \u200b\u200ba suitable coastline, find out the average thickness of the sand layer and, knowing the volume of all sand on Earth, divide it by the average volume of a grain of sand. It is not easy to get a rough figure, but it is possible.

If we return to heaven, then galaxies can act as such "beaches" for us: it is approximately established that in our galaxy 1011-1012
stars, and in the Universe there are 1011-1012 galaxies. A simple calculation shows that there should be 1022-1024 stars in the universe.

This is, of course, a rough figure, suggesting that our galaxy is quite average, that there are few deviations from the average, and that we have correctly estimated the number of galaxies in the universe. And the latter can turn out to be a very deceptive value, because for a long time it was believed that there are about 50 billion galaxies, and only the work of the Hubble orbiting telescope increased this figure by 2.5 times!

And even Hubble doesn't see everything. Apart from particularly distant or faint galaxies, many of them are simply invisible to a telescope operating in the optical range: they are obscured by a dense cloud of gas and dust that accompanies the process of active star formation. The Herschel infrared probe, which is preparing for launch this spring, will allow you to look into these distances (we talked about how it will work in the article "Eyed").

It should be borne in mind that no one has ever actually undertaken to count the number of stars in a galaxy: usually some generalizing characteristic is measured, in particular, the luminosity of the galaxy. Then we can, roughly speaking, divide the luminosity of a galaxy by the average luminosity of a star at the same distance - and estimate the number of stars in it. Herschel will work in a similar way, "counting" galaxies and measuring their luminosity in the infrared range.

So you just have to wait - until we can say that the stars are not less than the above magnitude: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, that is, a trillion trillion.

Do you know how many stars are in the sky? People have always been interested in this question, and scientists have always argued about this. So I decided to write an article on this topic on the blog.

If you are interested or if your kid is asking this question, read him this short story about what children think about stars and what scientists say.

One evening Pavlik, Taras and Anya looked at the sky. It was dark and all strewn bright stars... And it seemed that every minute there were more and more stars.

How many are there in heaven? - asked Anya.

I think several hundred, - said Taras.

- No, it's not enough, look, what a big sky.

There are apparently several thousand stars! - said Pavlik.

- Let's count! - together the children cried out and began to count in chorus.

- One, two, three, four ... - counted as many numbers as they knew and were tired. - Are there really so many of them that it is impossible to count everything?

“Even astronomers cannot count all the stars. And they have been studying photographs of the night sky for many years. It is difficult to count the stars, not only because there are so many of them, but also because some of them eventually disappear from the sky, while others, on the contrary, appear, - Anya intervened in the conversation. - And now a star has fallen from the sky, quickly think about a desire!


It seems that the stars in the sky are scattered randomly. But this is not the case. Even in ancient times, people, peering into the sky, noticed that the stars seemed to be folding drawings on a dark canvas. These patterns are called constellations. Constellations divide the sky into specific areas.

The constellations reminded the ancient Greeks of images famous heroes - Hercules, Perseus, outlines of animals and objects - Dragon, Swan, Lyra.

Some constellations can be easily seen even without a telescope. For example, the constellation Ursa Major: these are seven bright stars that are located in the sky in the form of a bucket. And next to these seven bright stars are other, less bright, stars - they resemble the head and legs of an animal. But, nevertheless, this is not quite a bear, because the bear actually has a short tail, and not the same as in the heavenly drawing.

There is a constellation next to the Big Dipper Ursa Minor... In the "tail" of the Ursa Minor is the North Star - the brightest star in this constellation. During the movement of the Earth in the East, the stars rise, and in the West, they sink lower and lower until they go completely. Only the North Star remains motionless. She always stays over the North Pole. To find this star, you need to find the constellation Ursa Major (large dipper) and extend the line that connects the two extreme stars of this bucket.

How many stars in the sky according to scientists

There was once a Greek scientist named Hipparchus who tried to count all the stars in the sky and catalog them. The scientist divided all the stars into six different groups (magnitudes), depending on how bright they were. The dimmest stars were sixth magnitude.

In general, different scientists in the galaxy count from 200 billion to a trillion different stars!

How many stars can a person see? At the same time, with a simple glance, a person can see from 1.5 to 2.5 thousand stars. It depends on how clear the sky is, as well as on how much lighting there is around the person. The darker it is around, the more stars it will be seen.


If a person looks at the sky through binoculars, then he will be able to see up to 200 thousand stars, and in a simple telescope already 10 times more. If the telescope is very powerful, then more than 100 million stars can be distinguished!

All these figures, of course, are approximate, but the exact answer to the question of how many stars are in the sky, most likely, humanity will never know, especially since a huge number of them are hidden behind galactic dust.

And, finally, I suggest watching a very beautiful video with pleasant music about the stars and about our land in general. This video got a huge number of views, and have you seen it?

The work of the Hubble orbiting telescope provides the first hard data for estimating the number of stars in the universe

The Hipparcos mission recorded many millions of stars in our galaxy alone - and this is clearly not the limit

The new Herschel telescope will be able to examine the most distant stars by their infrared radiation. Its launch, unfortunately, has been postponed year after year, and is still scheduled for spring 2009.

If you leave the illuminated city streets and peer into the sky above your head on a rather dark and cloudless night, it seems that myriads of stars will open. In fact, only a few thousand are visible to the naked eye - and even the simplest amateur telescope increases this number by orders of magnitude.

Modern instruments are discovering more and more distant galaxies, full of more and more countless stars, and it seems that there will be no end to this ... But how many are there, after all? It is not at all easy for experts to answer this question. Let's try to figure it out.

Indeed, the stars are not distributed throughout the Universe by a uniform "suspension", they are collected in vast groups - galaxies. For example, our Sun is located in the Milky Way galaxy, and only there are about 100 billion stars in it. But there are trillions of galaxies in the universe alone!

The ancient sage said that trying to count the stars is tantamount to counting all the grains of sand on all the shores on the whole earth. But if we do not need an exact number, but a rough estimate is enough, then we can take satellite images, establish an approximate total area of \u200b\u200ba suitable coastline, find out the average thickness of the sand layer and, knowing the volume of all sand on Earth, divide it by the average volume of a grain of sand. It is not easy to get a rough figure, but it is possible.

If we return to heaven, then galaxies can act as such "beaches" for us: it is approximately established that in our galaxy 1011-1012

stars, and in the Universe there are 1011-1012 galaxies. A simple calculation shows that there should be 1022-1024 stars in the universe.

This is, of course, a rough figure, suggesting that our galaxy is quite average, that there are few deviations from the average, and that we have correctly estimated the number of galaxies in the universe. And the latter can turn out to be a very deceptive value, because for a long time it was believed that there are about 50 billion galaxies, and only the work of the Hubble orbiting telescope increased this figure by 2.5 times!

And even Hubble doesn't see everything. Apart from particularly distant or faint galaxies, many of them are simply invisible to a telescope operating in the optical range: they are obscured by a dense cloud of gas and dust that accompanies the process of active star formation. The Herschel infrared probe, which is preparing for launch this spring, will allow you to look into these distances (we talked about how it will work in the article "Eyed").

It should be borne in mind that no one has ever actually undertaken to count the number of stars in a galaxy: usually some generalizing characteristic is measured, in particular, the luminosity of the galaxy. Then we can, roughly speaking, divide the luminosity of a galaxy by the average luminosity of a star at the same distance - and estimate the number of stars in it. Herschel will work in a similar way, "counting" galaxies and measuring their luminosity in the infrared range.

So you just have to wait - until we can say that the stars are not less than the above magnitude: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, that is, a trillion trillion.

Attempts to count the stars in the sky have been made since ancient times. Apparently, it is human nature to systematize and sort everything. The oldest known star catalog was compiled by the ancient Roman astronomer Hipparchus, and this was two and a half thousand years ago. It was he who introduced the concept of "magnitude", which is still used today. Magnitude is not the size of a star, as you might think from this word. This is its brightness.

Hipparchus shattered all stars in brightness into six magnitudes, of which the faintest, visible at the limit of human vision, belonged to the sixth. Then, with the development of optics, the seventh, tenth, and fifteenth magnitudes appeared ... Such stars cannot be seen with the naked eye at all, only through a telescope of the corresponding strength. Binoculars show stars no more than eighth or ninth magnitude, by the way.

So how many stars can you see without instruments?

Let's go out into the street and look at the sky, if it is, of course, clear and clean. Immediately the huge number of stars is striking. But this feeling is somewhat misleading. In fact, a person with excellent vision will not be able to see more than 5-6 thousand stars in both hemispheres together, and in one - no more than 2.5-3 thousand. There are just so many stars with brightness up to 6th magnitude in the sky.

In fact, we will see much less, and there are reasons for this.

For example, at the zenith more stars are visible, including faint ones. This can be explained by a thinner layer of the atmosphere when looking straight up, and, accordingly, less refraction of light and its absorption in dusty and foggy air. Stars closer to the horizon will be less visible. Low to it, we will not be able to see a 6th magnitude star by any means, well if we can see the 4th. But the area of \u200b\u200bthe sky at the horizon is much larger than the area at the zenith.

In addition, there are much more faint stars than bright ones, and we can only see a small part of them. Therefore, in fact, a person, even with perfect vision, will be able to see no more than 1.5-2 thousand stars in the sky. And this is clearly less than we expected.

It is worth remembering that the more extraneous lighting, the less stars are visible. Everyone has been to cities and probably noticed that the stars are almost completely invisible, even in seemingly dark places. So - a few of the brightest, and that's it! Illumination of the sky by street lamps, light from cars, thousands of windows interferes ... In such conditions, looking at the stars is like looking through a window from a room with the lights on. Also, much less stars are visible when there is a moon in the sky, and the brighter it is, the fewer stars are visible.

And how many stars are there in the sky?

Not only visible to the naked eye, but also invisible? There is no answer here, and there cannot be - the Universe is infinite, there is an infinite number of stars in it, moreover, every second some of them die, others appear. Life is boiling in the universe, seemingly slow in our understanding, but on what scale!

It is simply worth noting that with each magnitude, about three times as many stars are visible. For example, through binoculars you can already see about 200 thousand stars. An average amateur telescope can already see up to 100 million stars up to magnitude 15-16.

If we go even further, and arm ourselves with the most modern instruments invented by man to date, then we can see a much larger piece of the universe. We can even see individual stars in other galaxies. Then we can count already 70 sextillons of stars. These are 7 and 22 zeros!

In fact, as soon as a person invents even more powerful devices, the boundary of the visible part of the Universe is still pushed back, and the number of new stars increases many times over. After all, the stars in the sky are endless!