A new research found that, the universe contains a staggering two trillion galaxies, up to 20 times more than previously thought.  

According to an international team led by Christopher Conselice, Professor at the University of Nottingham in the UK, the number of galaxies in our universe is at least two trillion, 20 times more than previously thought the often quoted value of around 100 billion.

While, during the past 20 years very deep Hubble Space Telescope images have found a myriad of faint galaxies, and it was approximated that the observable universe contains about 100 billion galaxies in total.

Conselice said that, "We are missing the vast majority of galaxies because they are very faint and far away. The number of galaxies in the universe is a fundamental number we would like to know, and it boggles the mind that over 90 per cent of the galaxies in the universe have yet to be studied."

"Who knows what interesting properties we will find when we study these galaxies with the next generation of telescopes. These galaxies will likely hold the clues to many outstanding astrophysical issues," he said.

They converted pencil beam images of deep space from telescopes around the world, and especially from the Hubble telescope into 3D maps to calculate the volume as well as the density of galaxies of one tiny bit of space after another.

"This is very surprising as we know that over the 13.7 billion years of cosmic evolution galaxies are growing through star formation and merging with other galaxies," Conselice added.

Also Read: Rocket Launched With 8 Satellites, ISRO's Longest Mission

Nandini