A report co-authored by an expert at the Leiden Observatory, suggests there are ten times as many galaxies as previously thought: at least 2,000,000,000,000 of them, according to the Volkskrant.

The study, published in the Astrophysical Journal, used 3D modelling techniques on 20 years of data from the Hubble space telescope to conclude that there are at least two trillion galaxies in the observable universe.

This is, reports Nature magazine, the ‘first significant revision of the count in two decades.’ But – because of the time light takes to reach the Earth – some of these galaxies may not actually exist now, the scientists said.

The Volkskrant reports that Dr Ken Duncan of Leiden University was one of the team, which was led by the university of Nottingham.