Need with a problem. for some reason i can not seem to get it correct. thinking my formula is wrong. here's the problem:
assume that there are approximately 140x10^9 stars in our galaxy.
our galaxy is 50,000 light years from the center to the edge, but just 1,000 light years thick. it's shaped like a thin disk or cylinder. if the stars were distributed equally throughout the galaxy, how many stars would you expect to find in one cubic light year?
i thought it would be pi*r^2*l. then divide that by the number of stars. what am i doing wrong? , been 20 years since i had to do math like this!