[flashbunny]

Did a little math:

Just using this sparse area as a sample, with 10,000 galaxies in it, yields 127,000,000,000,000 galaxies.

There are an estimated 200 Billion stars in our galaxy alone. I guess that's a good average number to use for this.

200 Billion times 127,000,000,000,000 yields 25,400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 potential stars out there in the sky, and who knows how many planets orbiting them.

Now if John Kerry could just figure out how to tax all of them, there would be no deficit, and everyone in the US could have free health care. Kumbaya.

[alnitak]

Big numbers indeed. One thing to note is that the number of galaxies is decreasing over time as they merge into larger systems like our own Milky Way, Andromeda and the giant ellipticals. That process doesn't decrease the number of stars though.

The farthest we can see is equal to age_of_universe * speed_of_light. That's a finite distance. But there may well be stuff beyond that, which we can never see or communicate with in any way. For some reason I find this an annoying...

[kennedy]

25,400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 potential stars out there in the sky

So "as many stars as there are grains of sand" isn't really that far off of an estimate.

[Doe Eyes]

Now if John Kerry could just figure out how to tax all of them (25,400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) potential stars , there would be no deficit

Or better yet, the deficit, as a percent of total stars, is not significantly above historic levels.