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70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Stars Out There

Posted by michael on from the fermi's-paradox dept.

ChopsMIDI writes "Ever wanted to wish upon a star? Well, you have 70,000 million million million to choose from. That's the total number of stars in the known universe, according to a study by Australian astronomers. It's also about 10 times as many stars as grains of sand on all the world's beaches and deserts."

15 of 195 comments (clear)

  1. and all the media seems interested in by Enrico+Pulatzo · · Score: 4, Funny

    are J-Lo and Ben Affleck...bummer

  2. seti@homing it up by sirmikester · · Score: 3, Funny

    [quote]Asked if he believed the huge scale of the universe meant there was intelligent life out there somewhere, he told the paper.

    "Seventy thousand million million million is a big number ... it's inevitable."[/quote]

    Good thing i'm keeping my seti@home client running all the time... we're bound to find something sometime!

    --
    In linux libertas
  3. IPv8? by m0rph3us0 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does this mean within the next few eons we may have to transition to a 256 bit IP space or will IPv6 be enough?

    1. Re:IPv8? by Danse · · Score: 3, Funny

      then again, latency times in terms of hundreds of years may be a big turnoff for some web surfers.

      Yeah, playing Quake MDXXV will be a bitch with that kinda lag.

      --
      It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
    2. Re:IPv8? by Captain+Nitpick · · Score: 4, Funny
      Does this mean within the next few eons we may have to transition to a 256 bit IP space or will IPv6 be enough?

      In the long-standing tradition of dorks, I'm going to take your joke question seriously and answer it.

      If I'm counting zeroes correctly, we've got 7e22 stars to deal with. Base 2 log of 7e22 is 75.8898. Since having fractional bits isn't really feasible, that gets rounded up to 76.

      IPv6 uses 128 bit addresses, so subtracting off the 76 bits for specifying the star leaves us with 52 bits to play with. 2^52 gives us 4.5e15 addresses, which is roughly a million times more addresses than IPv4's 32 bits allow.

      In short, IPv6 does have a big enough address space to cover the visible universe, as long as you're not trying to assign individual IP addresses to trillions of nanobots.

      --
      But then again, I could be wrong.
  4. I don't believe it... by RALE007 · · Score: 4, Funny
    ...and intend to disprove this claim.

    1, 2, 3, 4, 5...

    --
    Beware blue cats moving at .99c
  5. My property! by Drakker · · Score: 4, Funny

    Star number 65 000 561 002 023 162 and all its surrounding planets, planetoids, asteroids, natural and artificial satellites, gas clouds, neutrinos and dark matter is officialy my sole property according to copyright law #1361. If you dare come into the 235 934 347 238 484 km radius of this solar system, I will sue you to death according to the super duper interstellar DMCA.

    You have been warned, I saw it first!

  6. Yes by Alethes · · Score: 2, Funny

    According to the article that you didn't read, which has a title of "Star survey reaches 70 sextillion," you could use the term "70 sextillion."

  7. sex..! by atari2600 · · Score: 2, Funny

    sext...damn another metric cousin...call me back when instr(postonSlashdot,3) returns SEX
    *goes back to room*
    SHIT ITS 2003!!

  8. Re:huh... by Jafafa+Hots · · Score: 2, Funny

    They probably figure that "million" is about the biggest number people can imagine... start using other terms and you might as well be saying "eleventy hundred gazillion heptavillion loopadillion." Doesnt mean anything to the average person.

    --
    This space available.
  9. Finally! :) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now I can break all these romantic star-watching nights:

    She: I wonder how many stars are out there *dreams*
    I: 70 sextillion b1tch, OWN3D *walks away*

  10. Huh. What are the odds... by jpsst34 · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...that it would have turned out to be such an even, round number?

    70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Stars Out There

    I mean, I would have thought it to be something more like 70,432,268,111,955,196,651,769 Stars Out There

    --
    How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?
  11. Re:Huh. What are the odds... by Tharsis · · Score: 3, Funny

    he, you missed one.

  12. Just means more names... by jbarr · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...for the International Star Registry to sell!

    --
    My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
  13. It is still only half the number of... by FauxReal · · Score: 2, Funny

    porn sites on the internet.

    --
    Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)