300 sextillion

300 sextillion: that's the number of stars we now think we have. That's 3 times larger than we'd thought.

Yep, scientists have discovered 200 sextillion stars we hadn't seen before. (Possibly.) The deal is that an astronomer figured out that elliptical galaxies (unlike our spiral galaxy) contain more red dwarf stars than we had calculated before. I pretty much love everything about this article, which points out that lots of folks are frustrated by the report and hope it's maybe not true, because that makes the universe more complex than we imagined. One scientist says, "It's a little alarmist," and it's shaking up the field "like a cat among pigeons."

A little shaking up now and then is good, no? Religious folk are often the ones getting quoted on not wanting to believe something new because it doesn't fit in their boundaries, but anyone can be guilty of that. I've always been beguiled by the idea that God not only made the stars but has gone to the extravagant length to name them all. So that's a lot more names, a lot more identities, quirks, lovingly crafted idiosyncrasies.

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