Galaxies

Astronomers at the University of Nottingham, U.K. have come to the conclusion that there are at least 2 trillion galaxies in the known universe based on analysis of Hubble Space Telescope observations and other data. This is at least 10 times previous estimates.

In just a hundred years, mankind had gone from thinking that the entire universe was in one galaxy to the realization that we could be living in a universe with an almost infinite number of galaxies.

Now, admittedly many of these galaxies are tiny and faint, but nonetheless there are many more than once presumed. The original estimate of 100 billion was based on earlier (1990's) Deep Field Hubble Space Telescope images. The way this is done is to focus Hubble on a tiny section of sky for several months. In the Ultra-Deep Field study and it was a small section of the Fornax constellation that revealed galaxies 13 billion light years distant. An eXtreme Deep Field study revealed galaxies back to 13.2 billon light years only 450 million years after the Big Bang. The image is only 3.4 arcminutes diagonally, which is only one tenth of the angular diameter of full moon.  This is only one thirteen-millionth of the total area of the sky. Some of these studies were done in infrared, which revealed even more galaxies. This same area as viewed by an Earth-based telescope would have revealed only a few galaxies. Over 10,000 galaxies can be seen in some of these images.

The surprising conclusion is based on the concept that 90% of the galaxies that are in universe cannot be seen. Perhaps the James Webb telescope will reveal some of these.
What's really amazing is that they've seen a galaxy that formed only 400 million years after the Big Bang, and it's fairly bright. This means that galaxies formed quicker than we once thought.

My take on this is that the new galaxy estimate is on the low end of the scale. This would indicate that there are so many galaxies in the universe we can't come up with a name for the number.

So, what does this mean? I think that this is another fact that suggests that there is no doubt that intelligent life is out there somewhere. The human species may be rare but only in our galaxy. With more than 2 trillion galaxies it's only reasonable to expect intelligent life. And, there is a possibility that there are many intelligent species in the universe. I don't know if we'll ever find out, but I firmly believe that they're out there.

Thanks for reading.