New study claims of fewer galaxies than previously thought

A new study has claimed that there could be fewer galaxies than previously thought. 

Earlier, Hubble Space Telescope suggested the existence of more than 2 trillion galaxies in the universe, but the latest research highlights to only hundreds of billions of them. 

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NASA's New Horizons spacecraft probed at such a distance that the sky was 10 times darker than the darkest observed by Hubble. 

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The last estimate of the number of galaxies was found by astronomers counting every galaxy seen in Hubble's deep field and multiplying it by the total area of the sky.

"Deep field observations are long-lasting observations of a particular region of the sky intended to reveal faint objects by collecting the light from them for an appropriately long time," said the European Space Agency's Hubble site.

However, this method doesn't include distant or faint galaxies that couldn't be seen.

The space that is seen as absolutely dark is actually lighted up by the diffuse glow of distant stars and galaxies.

New Horizons discovered that the distant galaxies are scarce than previously believed as the cosmic glow they generate is very weak.

"It's an important number to know -- how many galaxies are there?" the study's co-author Marc Postman, in a statement was quoted as saying by CNN. 

"We simply don't see the light from two trillion galaxies."