«There’s a grain of sand for every star in the sky»

¶ Art Film painted and directed by Alejandro Mos Riera

Astronomers estimate there exist roughly 10,000 stars for each grain of sand on Earth. That’s a lot of stars. Astronomers recently discovered the origin of sand grains. For years, they believed that only sun-like stars created lots of carbon and silicon dust, and the silicon dust is the source of sand.

More stars ‘than grains of sand’ There are 10 times more stars in the night sky than grains of sand in the world’s deserts and beaches, scientists say. Astronomers have worked out that there are 70 thousand million million million – or seven followed by 22 zeros – stars visible from the Earth through telescopes.

They said, if you assume a grain of sand has an average size and you calculate how many grains are in a teaspoon and then multiply by all the beaches and deserts in the world, the Earth has roughly (and we’re speaking very roughly here) 7.5 x 1018 grains of sand, or seven quintillion, five hundred quadrillion grains.

Astronomers estimate there are about 100 thousand million stars in the Milky Way alone. Outside that, there are millions upon millions of other galaxies also!

In our own backyard, the Universe is full of stars. But go more than about 100,000 light years away, and you’ve left the Milky Way behind. Beyond that, there’s a sea of galaxies: perhaps two trillion in total contained in our observable Universe.

«There’s a grain of sand for every star in the sky»

Art Film painted and directed by Alejandro Mos Riera, 2020.