• Question: how many atoms are there in the universe and how can the storm on saturn have started without any atmosphear

    Asked by laurie to Alex, Amy, Andy, Georgia, Ollie on 16 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Georgia Campbell

      Georgia Campbell answered on 10 Jun 2011:

      Saturn actually does have an atmosphere 🙂 We think of the other planets as having no atmosphere because we live on the only planet with an atmosphere that we can breathe. However, almost all of the other planets – including saturn – just have an atmosphere that is made up of different gases than ours. So a storm on Saturn will still occur in the gases that make up its atmosphere 🙂

      Honestly, I have no idea how many atoms there are in the universe though – I’m not sure anyone does, though some very clever phycisists will have a good estimate!

    • Photo: Andy MacLeod

      Andy MacLeod answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      I’ve seen estimates that put the number of the atoms in the visible universe at around 10 to the power 80. In other words:

      100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.

      That’s quite a lot. And that’s just in the bit of the universe we can see, which is only a fraction of the total. The whole universe will contain a lot more. A lot lot more. Probably more 0s than will fit in this box.

      As a wise man once wrote: “Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is…”

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