And the number they came up with is truly staggering. Our old planet has somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 million trillion trillion bacteria, give or take a few. That's a five followed by 30 zeroes. Whitman estimates that if each bacteria were the size of a penny, the stack would extend a trillion light-years. The study, published in the June issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , wasn't just fun and games.
Bacteria play a crucial role in just about everything.
He thought that if he could get a handle on the population, he'd be better equipped to determine just how well they adapt to changes in the environment. The number they One of the bad guys, magnified 1,000 times. Some streptococcus bacteria can cause serious diseases, such as pneumonia. So we don't have to worry a whole lot about their future. That won't be good news to those who think of bacteria only as disease-spreading villains.