What is 890 billion times more massive than Sol?

[Kanadalainen]

And I don't mean the bloke down at the corner pub.

https://phys.org/news/2019-12-mass-milk ... n-sun.html

[ThinkerX]

given that the vast majority of stars are red dwarfs with but a fraction of the suns mass, this argues for at least 2 trillion stars (and that estimate is on the low side)

[helicon]

Holy Cow!

[ThinkerX]

on second thought, I must wonder if the 890 billion figure cited in the OP includes Dark Matter. If so, that would dramatically reduce the number of stars, though they'd still number well into the hundreds of billions

[notFritzArgelander]

My understanding is that 5/6 of this is dark matter, roughly.

[Kanadalainen]

Yes. From that article:

"The researchers still had to take into account dark matter, which prior research has suggested makes up approximately 93 percent of the galaxy's total mass. Putting both into their calculations led to the total mass of the galaxy and a calculation for the total mass of just the dark matter—830 billion times that of the sun."

[GCoyote]

So it's a fashion choice. Dark matter makes a galaxy look less massive than it really is.

[notFritzArgelander]

So it's a fashion choice. Dark matter makes a galaxy look less massive than it really is.

Love it. DM is a very slimming "little black dress"! Maybe I should try one on?

[pakarinen]

Love it. DM is a very slimming "little black dress"! Maybe I should try one on?

If you do, please do not post photos.

[notFritzArgelander]

Love it. DM is a very slimming "little black dress"! Maybe I should try one on?

If you do, please do not post photos.

I don't think that posting photos was ever in the cards....
You are giving me ideas of things to try with my avatar for the holidays, though.....

[ThinkerX]

"The researchers still had to take into account dark matter, which prior research has suggested makes up approximately 93 percent of the galaxy's total mass. Putting both into their calculations led to the total mass of the galaxy and a calculation for the total mass of just the dark matter—830 billion times that of the sun."

which puts the 'ordinary matter' component at 60 billion solar masses. With low mass M class dwarfs accounting for 70% or more of all stars...toss in a few of these gargantuan black holes...150-200 billion stars, roughly on a par with prior estimates...