There are a dizzying 2 trillion galaxies in the universe, up to 20 times more than previously thought, astronomers reported on Thursday. The surprising finding, based on 3D modeling of images collected over 20 years by the Hubble Space Telescope, was published in the Astronomical Journal. “It boggles the mind that over 90% of the galaxies in the universe have yet to be studied,” commented Christopher Conselice of the University of Nottingham, who led the study. The analysis reached back more than 13bn years – very near the time of the “Big Bang” thought to have given birth to the universe. When the universe was only a few billion years old, there were 10 times as many galaxies in a given volume of space as there are today, the findings suggest.

Source: The Guardian October 13, 2016 18:55 UTC