The universe has 10 times more galaxies than scientists thought

There are almost 10 times more galaxies in the universe than we once thought, according to a new analysis by Hubble Space Telescope. Counting all the galaxies in the universe is hard. So hard, it seems, that it's possible to miss billions of them.

The new analysis shows that there are about 2 trillion of them, up from about 200 billion.

It's the first major revision to the number since 1995, when scientists turned Hubble's gaze on one section of sky for 10 days and created an image, unveiled in 1996, that NASA called "mankind's deepest, most detailed optical view of the universe."

Based on the single section of sky and the galaxies that showed up in it, astronomers extrapolated that the entire universe should have about 200 billion galaxies. But that far from settled the question. Twenty years later, the new analysis begins by noting that the number of galaxies in the universe is still "a fundamental question."

The study was led by Christopher Conselice of the University of Nottingham and accepted for publication in the latest issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

To know more about the study, click here.