Scientists say there are probably fewer galaxies in space than they previously thought

Scientists say there are probably fewer galaxies in space than they previously thought

While NASA had previously determined that there are around two trillion galaxies in the universe, new findings indicate the number is more likely in the hundreds of billions.

The outside world, or the universe in this case, just got a little clearer. Scientists recently took a deep dive into some unusual observations in the solar system, and their findings span everything from the actual number of galaxies in the universe to the types of stars around us. In April 2020, NASA first detected a huge flare from its satellites that passed through Mars, and although this intergalactic sighting only lasted 140 milliseconds, a research team from the University of Johannesburg knows now that it was an explosion of a magnetar, which is a powerful neutron star with a magnetic field. It originated in a galaxy 11.4 million light-years away in space, the Daily mail reports.

Soebur Razzaque, a professor at the University of Johannesburg, noted that this sighting is not too improbable because there are tens of thousands of neutron stars in the Milky Way, but there are still only 30 which were discovered in the form of magnetars. “Magnetars are up to a thousand times more magnetic than ordinary neutron stars,” he explained. “Most emit x-rays every now and then. But so far we only know of a handful of magnetars that have produced giant eruptions. The brightest we could detect was in 2004.” There is a chance that if another is spotted near the Milky Way, a radio telescope, like the MeerKAT in South Africa, researchers can learn even more about the inner workings of some of the most powerful forces in the world. ‘space. “It would be an excellent opportunity to study the relationship between very high energy gamma ray emissions and radio wave emissions during the second explosion,” Razzaque adds. “And that would tell us more about what works and what doesn’t in our model.”

The story continues

Related: The Earth Is Spinning Faster Than It Has In 50 Years

When it comes to outer space as a whole, researchers have been busy discovering more than just stars. A new study in the Astrophysical Journal has found that there may actually be fewer galaxies than previously thought; these discoveries came from the team measuring the faint background glow of invisible galaxies, according to the Daily mail. “That’s an important number to know – how many galaxies are there? We just don’t see the light of two trillion galaxies,” said Mark Postman, Space Telescope Science Institute researcher and lead author of study.

After doing more research, the team found that NASA’s New Horizon spacecraft only detected hundreds of billions of galaxies instead of two trillion. Earlier estimates have been found from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, but the Hubble primarily uses mathematical models to discover galaxies due to the telescope’s inability to see enough visible light due to space pollution. There will still be a follow-up study to confirm these findings, however: “NASA’s upcoming James Webb Space Telescope could help solve the mystery,” the team shared in a statement. “If weak individual galaxies are the cause, then Webb ultra-deep field observations should be able to detect them.”