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  • 2016-12-12 (xsd:date)
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  • Are There More Trees on Earth Than Stars in the Milky Way? (en)
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  • One popular fact included on numerous list of science facts that sound wrong is the claim that there are more trees on Earth than stars in our own Milky Way galaxy. This claim has its origins in a September 2015 paper published in the scientific journal Nature titled Mapping Tree Density at a Global Scale, which provided an estimate for the number of trees on Earth of 3.04 trillion: According to NASA education and outreach specialist Maggie Masetti, most estimates put the number of stars in the Milky Way at between 100 billion and 400 billion stars: Inasmuch as these estimates approximate the actual (and impossible to verify) numbers of trees on Earth and stars in the Milky Way, the claim is accurate. However, it should be noted that estimating both the number of trees across the globe and stars in the sky is extremely difficult, and thus any such numbers come with plenty of caveats and limitations. The Nature paper that estimated the number of trees arrived at a total an entire order of magnitude higher than the previous estimate, made in 2005, of 400.25 billion trees. To arrive at the 2015 estimate, scientists used 428,775 actual field measurements from selected areas and from different biomes, then created mathematical models to extrapolate to a global scale. As discussed by Space.com’s Elizabeth Howell, coming up with an estimate for the number of stars in our galaxy carries with it even more uncertainty: Unless someone develops a new methodology for counting stars which yields a much higher number than current estimates, it does seem as though there are more trees on Earth than stars in the Milky Way. Also relevant to the discussion is the fact that the authors of the tree study estimated that around 15 billion trees are cut down every year. (en)
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