The Universe was created from a big bang and is ever expanding. As the universe expands the far off bodies, get fainter and fainter. Astronomers contend that there are more than 200 billion galaxies in this universe or they thought so. However, recent studies have revealed that the real number could be in trillions.
Studies conducted on Hubble Telescope images have revealed that the number of Galaxies is much more than previously thought. Researchers pored over images of deep space taken by Hubble over the last 20 years and converted them into 3D pictures. Using complex mathematical calculations they measured the number of galaxies at different times in the history of the Universe going back to 13 billion years ago when the Big Bang happened.
Researchers from the University of Nottingham used latest mathematical models to seek out galaxies which could not be seen with present day telescopes. The researchers concluded that of the entire universe, more than 90% of the observable Universe is too faint to be seen with present day telescopes. In other words, we are still not able to understand or comprehend a major part of this cosmos.
Shortly sophisticated telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to see these faint galaxies which have remained unknown to humanity till now. The smaller galaxies of the past merged into bigger galaxies, galaxies which we see today. It means the Universe which is a few billion years old had ten times as many galaxies as we see today.
It is persuasive evidence that galaxies evolve through the course of history. What we see today are dramatically reduced numbers of galaxies which were present many epochs ago during the time of big bang. It also answers the 200-year-old question put up by the great astronomer Olber who asked the question-If they are so many infinite numbers of stars then why is the sky black? It is known as the Olber’s paradox.
