As a teacher, I am trying to help students understand the scale of the universe.
Using the analogy of sand as stars, and based on the average size of sand as .5mm across, I worked out...
1. The number of stars is greater than the grains of sand on all the beaches of the world
(allowing for the fact that that actual length of coastline is variable depending on how you measure it)
2. The number of stars in our galaxy is about 100 billion stars, and so, in terms of sand, that is about 500 tonne and would fill approx 320 cubic meters, so three large rooms worth. That's considerably smaller than all the beaches of the earth.
3. However, if an average star is about the size of a grain of sand...
- our solar system would be 3.5 m across (give or take where your think the boundary is)
- our galaxy would be still 340,000 km across
My question is:
Am I roughly correct in my estimation? I'd hate to think I am out by many orders of magnitude :D
Paul Looyen
Using the analogy of sand as stars, and based on the average size of sand as .5mm across, I worked out...
1. The number of stars is greater than the grains of sand on all the beaches of the world
(allowing for the fact that that actual length of coastline is variable depending on how you measure it)
2. The number of stars in our galaxy is about 100 billion stars, and so, in terms of sand, that is about 500 tonne and would fill approx 320 cubic meters, so three large rooms worth. That's considerably smaller than all the beaches of the earth.
3. However, if an average star is about the size of a grain of sand...
- our solar system would be 3.5 m across (give or take where your think the boundary is)
- our galaxy would be still 340,000 km across
My question is:
Am I roughly correct in my estimation? I'd hate to think I am out by many orders of magnitude :D
Paul Looyen
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