Question

How many solar systems are there in the universe? How many are there in the known universe?

Answer 1

Hint: The earth is only a single planet in a universe that is said to contain billions of objects like galaxies, stars, planets, moons, asteroids, comets, meteoroids, etc. These cosmic arrangements stretch up to 93.016 billion light-years which is the size of the known universe. The galaxy in which our planet is contained is called the Milky Way and it alone stretches over 105,700 light-years. Within it, our solar system extends to 1.5 light-years and is centred around the sun. The Sun is a star is a sphere made up of hot plasma radiating energy and light.

Complete answer: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, commonly known as NASA, reported that the sun as we know is one of at least 2500 other stars with planets orbiting them found alone in our galaxy, the Milky Way. The Milky Way contains around 100-400 billion stars and at least that many planets. Therefore, the presence of other planetary systems like our solar system is not only possible but highly probable. This means that there is an unknowable number of stars and planetary systems in the entire universe. However, because even the closest stars to our planetary system are located hundreds of light-years away, it will take years of advanced technological research to send probes and find definite answers to these questions. The Proxima Centauri is the nearest known planetary system which is 4.25 light-years away and is part of the constellation Centaurus.

Note: Our solar system is made up of various objects including eight planets namely Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune alongside dwarf planets (Pluto and Eris) and moons, minor planets, comets, etc.