It is the origin of innumerable number of myths, legends and other stories. Yet while the number of ideas and answers to the mystery of the sky is unfathomable, so is the number of stars out there. When looking up at a night sky, only a small amount of stars can been seen by the naked eye. In fact it is an amount so small that it is a comparable to a handful of sand on the beach. While the exact number can't be known just yet, many estimates have been given.
Stars are giant spheres of gas, mainly hydrogen and helium.
Most of them, with the exception of the Sun, are trillions of miles away. Because they are so far, they seem to us like little specks of light, but in actuality they can be millions of miles wide in diameter. Stars are located in galaxies, but a galaxy contains more than just stars. Clouds of dust and gas, called nebulae, are where stars are born. In our galaxy alone, the Milky Way, there is a predicted 3 billion to 100 billion stars.