How many black holes could there be?

Question

Is there any kind of estimate of how many black holes the universe could contain?

Answer 1

It is possible that there are easily over 9000 black holes throughout the universe, because light cannot escape from them, they will be hard to detect, and because the universe is so large, it would be impossible to know for sure just how many black holes there are, if there is even a finite number.

Answer 2

As some of your other answers have stated there are billions of galaxies and each one is reckoned to have a super massive black hole at its centre, that's the light we see when you see the centre of a galaxy as it generates heat and friction !!, of course we can only see as far as telescopes will allow and there could be billions more galaxies and black holes out there ??..

Answer 3

It's theorised that each galaxy has a super-massive black hole at it's heart, so you can figure there could be at least one for each of the roughly 100 billion observable galaxies, as well as any smaller ones that may form elsewhere in galaxies.

Answer 4

Trillions

Answer 5

As the size of the Universe is unknown the number given would only ever be a very rough guess,Some years ago the Hubble Space Telescope was randomly aimed at a single spot in the sky and it took a photo of an area the size of a penny as seen from 1 mile away,it revealed a vision of thousands of galaxies that were unknown to man,

Answer 6

Do you include virtual black holes, or not?

Each of the trillion galaxies within our event horizon contains at least several black holes bigger than a solar mass.  However, the number per galaxy cannot be as high as a billion, because we do not see many stars in the process of being absorbed into black holes.

Answer 7

In the center of every galaxy there is a black hole in the size of an atom. A black hole occurs when an object (i.e. sun or large star) collapses under it's own gravity to an incredibly small size. If you fall into a black hole, the difference in gravity between your head and your feet would be so great it would tear you apart. So, assuming how many stars there are out there each of them can be a potential Black Hole. We can't really see black holes. We just judge by the stuff around them, and or by the help of certain radio waves they spread which we catch on our advanced cameras. Black holes are soooooo powerful they bend light..........

Many black holes have objects around them, and by looking at the behavior of the objects you can detect the presence of a black hole. You then use measurements of the movement of objects around a suspected black hole to calculate the black hole's mass.  

Answer 8

Now they're thinking all galaxies have supermassive black holes at their centers;  along with "normal" black holes (collapsed cores of stars) intermixed throughout their body, so... trillions.  

Answer 9

who knows there might be trillions and billions and millions and every time a supernova happens it might form a black hole.

Answer 10

there is no official estimation. the 'number' is beyond the reach of  the human brain.

Answer 11

hundreds of billions, maybe even trillions, as the size of the universe is so large, the supermassive black hole part puts about 10 billion, all the staler can put it close to around 56 billion, possilby more