63- Hypothetical Galactic Population Size

Published: July 16, 2023, 11 a.m.

On today's episode, we're going to range out into the cosmos for our inaugural episode in the world of astrobiology! We're going to ask the question: how many people could our galaxy support? Using some assumptions and approximations, we're going to see that the number dwarfs our current numbers here on Earth by quite some margin...


1) Asimov, I. (1952, 2016 edition), Foundation and Empire. London: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 2) Briggs, J. C. (2017), Emergence of a sixth mass extinction? Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 122: 243- 248. 3) Chamie, J. (2022), Population Levels, Trends and Differentials: More Important Population Matters. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature Switzerland AG. 4) Chu, J., MIT News (2023), Astronomers snap first ever image of supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (online) [Accessed 02/07/2023]. 5) Cowie, R. H., Bouchet, P. and Fontaine, B. (2022): The Sixth Mass Extinction: fact, fiction or speculation? Biological Reviews 97: 640- 663. 6) de Almeida, G. (2004), The Milky Way. Chapter in: Navigating the Night Sky. Patrick Moore’s Practical Astronomy Series. London: Springer. 7) The Editors of Scientific American (2015), Exoplanets: Worlds Without End. New York: Scientific American. 8) Hodge, P. W. (1981), The Andromeda Galaxy. Scientific American 244(1): 92-101. 9) Hodge, P. W., Encyclopedia Britannica (2017), Magellanic Cloud (online) [Accessed 02/07/2023]. 10) Hodge, P. W., Encyclopedia Britannica (2023), Milky Way Galaxy (online) [Accessed 02/07/2023]. 11) Kurzgesagt- In a Nutshell, YouTube (2022), The Last Human- A Glimpse Into The Far Future (online) [Accessed 02/07/2023]. 12) Ramakrishna, S. (2021), Circular economy and sustainability pathways to build a new-modern society. Drying Technology 39(6): 711-712. 13) Ritchie, H., Our World in Data (2023), The UN has made population projections for more than 50 years- how accurate have they been? (online) [Accessed 02/07/2023]. 14) Sender, R., Fuchs, S. and Milo, R. (2016), Revised estimates for the number of human and bacteria cells in the body. PLOS Biology 14(8): e1002533. 15) Stellato, J. (2020), The Milky Way and Lentil Beans. Science Scope 43(6): 44- 49. 16) Stevenson, D. (2015), Milkomeda and the Fate of the Milky Way. Chapter in: The Complex Lives of Star Clusters. Astronomers’ Universe. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. 17) University of Göttingen, Phys.org (2021), Breaking the warp barrier for faster-than-light travel (online) [Accessed 02/07/2023]. 18) van den Heuvel, E. (2016), How Distant Are the Stars? Chapter in: The Amazing Unity of the Universe. Astronomers’ Universe. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. 19) Author unknown, NASA Exoplanet Exploration: Planets Beyond Our Solar System (date unknown, updated July 2023), Discovery (online) [Accessed 02/07/2023]. 20) Author unknown, United Nations (2022), Day of Eight Billion, 15 November 2022 (online) [Accessed 02/07/2023]. 21) Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Names of large numbers (online) [Accessed 02/07/2023].