Star count: Australian National U. astronomer makes best yet (Forwarded)

In message , Ernie Wright
writes
Andrew Yee wrote:

There are more stars in the sky than all the grains of sand on every
beach and in every desert on earth, according to an Australian
National University astronomer who has made the most accurate
calculation of star numbers to date.

I'll delurk long enough to point out that I posted an order of magnitude
estimate of the stars/sand ratio to sci.astro.amateur several years ago,
and it's pretty close to 1.0. See

http://www.google.com/groups?selm=37...E65%40home.com
http://www.google.com/groups?selm=3A...97A%40home.com

"Even for a professional astronomer used to dealing in monster numbers
this is mind-boggling," Dr Driver says.

People enjoy being boggled, I guess. Hopefully it doesn't diminish the
grandeur of the universe to realize that we can find numbers of this
size in things, like sand grains, that are closer to human scale.

A chemist probably wouldn't be impressed :-) It's roughly the number of
atoms in 1 gram of carbon, if I've done my sums right.
--
"Roads in space for rockets to travel....four-dimensional roads, curving with
relativity"
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia.fsnet.co.uk is welcome.
Or visit Jonathan's Space Site http://www.merseia.fsnet.co.uk