As John Nawrocki posted: Astronomers estimate that are 10^22 to 10^24 stars in the universe.
Now, our star (the Sun) has 8 planets... Thanks to whoever killed Pluto... I still miss old Pluto... We could make a guess that on average every star has two planets, but really there's no way with current technology to make a very accurate estimate on this. In any case, even if every star had an average of one planet, that's around 10^24 planets... In English that means about a million, million, million, million or a billion, billion, million... Or a trillion trillion planets! Whoa.....
We are the members of the Milky Way galaxy. Our galaxy itself has several solar systems and there are planets in every solar system. There are numerous such galaxies present in the universe. Some are known while many more are unknown and several are yet to be discovered. All of them have many more solar systems and planets.
Science has grown by leaps and bounds in the last few decades but still the scientists have not yet managed to track down the number of planets in the Milky Way itself. Thus it can be safely concluded that nobody as yet know how many planets are there in this universe or are likely to do so in the near future. It would certainly take a very long time to know that even if we managed to do so in the first place.
Our universe, it is believe was formed after the huge a huge explosion, called the BIG BANG. The Big Bang theory believes that a huge explosion in which matter was tossed in every direction created the universe.
Our universe is made up of 9 planets and a star: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and the Sun, respectively. The objects in the sky and the cosmic phenomena have forever fascinated men. This fascination has led to the discovery of the planets that make up our solar system today.
The Sun the central and the largest body present in the solar system. It is the closest star from earth, more than 149,600 km away. It occupies 99.8% of the total mass of the solar system.
Mercury, the first planet, is the eighth largest plant of the solar system. It is closest to the sun and its diameter is 40% less than that of earth.
Venus, also sometimes called the jewel of the sky, is the second planet and is 108,200,000 km away from the sun. This planet is named after a Roman Goddess, Venus, who is associated with love and beauty and wears a cloud veil. Venus is also known as a sister to our planet, the Earth.
Earth, the third in line, is 150 million kilometers away from the sun. It is the only planet that is fully known to support life.
Mars, the Red planet, is fourth in line. It was named after the Roman god of war. It is also called the Red planet because of its characteristic red appearance which is due to the rocks and the soil present there.
Jupiter is the fifth and by far the largest planet of the solar system. It was big enough to house more than a thousand Earth's insides itself. The Jupiter is famous for its Great Red Spot, which is an intricate storm that moves in an anti clockwise direction. The Jupiter alone has 14 moons associated with it.
Next to Jupiter, Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system. The beauty of this planet comes from its Rings, which are one of the most stunning things present in our solar system.
Uranus, the third largest, is distinguished by its slight tilt in its side. It is believed that this is due to its collision with another body in the solar system during its evolution.
Neptune bears sister to the Great Red Spot of the Jupiter, called the Great Dark Spot, which is also the reminiscent of the storms like conditions of the Jupiter. This planet is large enough to accommodate 60 Earths inside.
Pluto, the coldest and the furthest from the sun, is labeled the dwarf planet. Pluto was named after the suggestion of a little girl, Venetia Burney, who loved Roman Mythology and contacted the duiscoverer to name the planet so.
8 planets or 9 no matter; that is our solar system not the universe . Our solar system is in the Milky Way galaxy. In the universe there millions of galaxies. Astronomers estimate that are 1022 to 1024 stars in the universe some with orbiting bodies that could be planets. There are only guesses as to how many planets there are but you can find out a lot by visiting NASA: 22<---} Click here to learn about the universe. {---
Number of planets?? Of course, there are unpredictable number of planets here in this universe. If you imagine, a universe is composed of many galaxies, including milky way galaxy which include our planet earth. In this universe there are galaxies which are not yet discovered or seen by our high-tech telescopes. I believe there are about unlimited number of galaxies in this universe. Maybe, number of planets cannot be counted by us ^^
We can only locate planets by minute fluctuations in the radiation given off by the parent star. We have found a number of extrasolar planets recently. Considering how many we are finding (most are gas giants due to their high gravity. It is assumed there are others that we cannot locate as well orbiting these stars. Jnawrocki's estimate of the number of stars may be close to accurate, I am not sure. If there is even one half as many planets as there are stars (keep in mind the stars may not even be there anymore if they are a couple thousand light years away, it will be 2000 years before we know whether they have gone supernova or collapsed etc.) then there are literally billions or hundreds of billions of planets, if not more.
