Study triples count of stars in universe
There are now more planets to explore, new Xenos races to crush, New hiding places for the forces of Chaos. Just when you thought that the Imperium was alone and beset from all sides in a lonely universe, the unknown void suddenly got bigger. I suggest that FFG release a new supplement to take into account this new information.
I demand a write-up for all 300 sextillion of them, too.
Ive already heard several cadres of inquisitors,multiple deathwatch kill teams,and a boat load of rogue traders(to plunder) have already been dispatched to this region to deal with these heretic and xeno scum!The emperor protects!
The logic behind the new number is that more galaxies have similar numbers of stars to our own, where all the action in 40k happens. So the God-Emperor's current domain is the same size, even if there are more stars to bring into the fold outside our galaxy.
The Milky Way galaxy contains about 200 billion stars (modern assesments vary 200 to 400 billion), so there are still plenty of room for more xenos races, chaos hideouts and alike.
As far as I know, Warhammer 40k, does not even strive outside the borders of our own galaxy. Just the milky way is a HUGE place and the number of possible star systems that may have a planet that support sentient life is beyond what we mere humans can visualize in our limited minds. That said, I dont even think the imperium covers more than a small portion of the galaxy.
If you believe the old "Imperium of a million worlds" idea, this means, in effect, that for every 1 inhabited star system in the Imperium, there are 200,000 uninhabited star systems in our galaxy that are NOT part of the Imperium.
Lightbringer, that sounds about right. I'm a big fan of "the Imperium is islands of humanity floating in a vast sea of darkness." Humanity's holdings may span the galaxy, but there's a lot of wilderness space between the inhabited sectors.
Cheers,
- V.
I really like that image, too, Vandegraffe. 
However, I always kind of thought that a million worlds seemed a little low for the number of worlds in the Imperium! I always saw it as an unknown number of worlds that could potentially be significantly more than a million worlds... the "million worlds" thing is probably more of a turn of phrase than a binding indication as to the Imperium's size... Ultimately no one knows, though, I guess.
MInd you, this puts the Koronus Expanse into perspective. If we assume that it's roughly the same size as the Calixis Sector - which has about 120 worlds - this means that there are about 240 million unexplored stars in the Koronus Expanse! 