Tuesday, February 23, 2010

In the night sky,when it's super clear,why isn't the entire spread one huge bright blanket of stars???

Why do so few shine through???...tom scienceIn the night sky,when it's super clear,why isn't the entire spread one huge bright blanket of stars???
There ARE a lot of stars. It's just that when stars are dimmer or farther away, they aren't as bright in the sky. Those facts actually provide a way to explain why there can be an infinite number of stars without us being vaporized.In the night sky,when it's super clear,why isn't the entire spread one huge bright blanket of stars???
the universe (space, stars , etc.) is forever expanding, never ending and has no limits. it is infinite.So to the naked eye we cannot see all there is to see in our limited veiw.
The stars are all at different magnitudes and stuff. They are bigger and smaller and at different locations in the sky. Some are brighter than others. All of these things factor in. If you want a more detailed answer, then you should check out a website or take an astronomy class.
If you are someplace VERY dark, the stripe of the milky way across the sky is pretty dense. But...most of space is empty. (the missing dark matter not withstanding). Its hard to grasp the degree to which space is ';empty';. But it is, so stars aren't as densely packed as you might think as you look up at the sky.
This is one of the arguments used to disspell the theory that the universe is infinate with an infinate amount of stars - if this were so, the sky would be as you describe: ';a huge blanket of stars.'; A good portion of the light energy from the stars is absorbed by space debri on it's long, long journey to us. Some of it is diverted from us by space warping due to large objects near or in its path to earth. Even on a clear night, the earths atmosphere also hinders us from a ';clear'; view (the reason the Hubble telescope was put outside the atmosphere was to try and eliminate the effects of our blanket of air on long range research into space.)
The Milky Way is just that. If you have a pair of binoculars, look at the Milky Way and you will see so many stars you can't count them.
Because there is space between the stars and many stars may not be close enough to give you the shine
It is. You have to get away from cities and lights. Get up to the higher elevations (and I don't mean climbing a telephone pole). You will be amazed.


Our atmosphere blocks a lot of the light. That's why you must go up, up, up. To put less atmosphere between you and the stars.
Because our eyes can only process light that is bright enough for us to see.Granted a hawk can see more of those stars that are there than we can.Its all about distance.Someone in a desert on a flat plain might have an extremely good flashlight shining directly at you.But since light spreads out over distance after so far it is to weak to see.
Light.


Try using a flashlight in a bright room.
There are two main reasons:





1. Most of the stars in the universe are less luminous than the Sun and so are most likely invisible to the naked eyes.





2. Most stars that are brighter than the Sun are too far away to be visible to the naked eye.





There are several others:





- Light from the ground lights up the atmosphere and dims the starlight.


- The Moon also sometimes light up the atmosphere just a tad bit and that can dim the starlight a little.


- The atmosphere itself is not totally transparent, starlight also gets scattered, therefore dimming the star.
Pollution.


Even though we do not notice it, pollution blocks our view of some of the dimmer stars we should see.
clouds....the day u were talkin about probably was cloudy when it got dark. clouds are still there even when the sun is not.
A simple answer would be that the light from distant stars have not reached us yet and maybe never will considering the expansion of our universe, It has been considered a paradox for many years because if our universe was really infinite, the universe would not expand and therefore our night sky would be a blinding flash of light- we would never survive. I would suggest visiting astrowhiz on Yahoo Groups to post or discuss any space and astronomy topics!
There are not so many stars in galaxies, including ours, and galaxies in the Universe, and the stars and galaxies are small compared to distances between them. Also, there are gases in space that block the light, as does the Earth's atmosphere

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