How Many Stars?

Astronomers rate the stars on a luminosity, or brightness, scale. They call the brightest stars in the sky first-magnitude stars. There are only 20 of those. The next brightest stars are second-magnitude stars. Then come third-magnitude stars, and

Early astronomers used crude instruments to measure the sky ant to plot the stars. They counted exactly 5,119 stars-the number that we could see the naked eye, the first-magnitude through sixth-magnitude stars. so on, to six-magnitude stars, the faintest ones that we can see with the unaided eye. From the point on, we can observe the stars only through a telescope, but the scale continues through the twentieth magnitude and beyond.

In 1610, with the help of a crude telescope, Galileo discovered thousands of stars never before seen. From that day to this, newly discovered stars have increased the number from 5,119 to billions.

Astronomers estimate that our own galaxy-the Milky Way-has some 100 billion suns, or stars. Photographs of the night sky, taken from the largest telescopes, show at least 500 million other galaxies. Some estimates place the number at twice that-1 billion galaxies! Now, let’s suppose that each galaxy has no more stars than our own has. That would mean that there are at least 100 billion billion stars. At this point it is safe to say that no matter how advanced our telescopic instruments may become, we will never be able to number the host of heaven.

If you are wondering how the number 100 billion billion is written, get a sheet of paper and put down a 1 with 20 zeros after it. The official name for that number is 100 quintillion. That’s a lot of stars, and it’s only a conservative estimate of what is out there.

Jeremiah, writing at the same time in history and without human instruments but with the aid of heavenly vision, declared that the “host of heaven cannot be numbered.” What if every one of those stars has a planet or two, or five or nine, or more, to explore? Do you suppose there will be enough places to visit and things to do for eternity?

A Word from Our Creator:

As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me.

Jeremiah 33:22.