How many stars are in the Milky Way?

Astronomers estimate that the Milky Way has about 100 billion stars. However, this number is a very rough estimate based on mathematical formula, and advances in technology allow more accurate assessments.

Counting the stars of the Milky Way is a difficult task, but scientists have come up with some techniques to give estimates. One way to do this is to figure out how much of the galaxy's mass is made up of stars. Then, using the mass of the Earth's own sun as a reference, it can be approximated how many stars are there in the galaxy. However, since this figure only assumes that the other stars' sizes are close to the sun's, it may deviate largely from the exact number.