Are all the stars in the sky we see already dead?

Question

Someone told me they are dead and the light is just reaching the earth?

Answer 1

Not true. While starlight does take some time to reach us, that time is very short compared to the life expectancy of a typical star. All the stars that we can see with the naked eye are relatively close in cosmic terms - from a few light years to at most a few thousand light years (NOT millions or billions) away. A typical star burns for billions of years, with even the shortest-lived lasting for a million years or so. So the chances that any of the stars you can see are now gone is slim.

Also, stars don't just unexpectedly die like cosmic goldfish. They undergo a predictable series of stages before dying, and astronomers can identify those few that are on their way out.

Answer 2

That is not true. The universe is a living thing, and stars are born and stars die every day. Some stars are so large and so far away that they may truly be dead now, but we are still seeing the light it gave off centuries ago. At the same time, there are new stars that are alive and well, only the light has not reached us yet. Most of the stars that we see in our visible galaxy are active and doing quite well.

Answer 3

What you saw light reaching the earth could be the light which
was emitted long time ago. It would depend how far away the star was. If the life of star was shorter than the time it took to reach us. It might be dead by now when you saw this star.

Answer 4

Not at all - many of the stars we see are merely tens of light years away. This means that much of the light we see in the sky is from less than 100 years ago.... it is almost impossible for a star to burn out in that short amount of time.

In fact the entire milky way galaxy is estimated to be about 100,000 light years across - considering the fact that most stars live for at least a couple BILLION years, and light from even the furthest stars in our galaxy will reach Earth in less than 100,000 years, most of the stars you see in the sky are alive and kicking.

It is pretty much impossible to see any single stars outside our own galaxy - so we obviously wont see them whether they are alive or dead.

Answer 5

Your someone friend is incorrect (for the most part) light from stars may take billions of years to reach us and some are dead but for the majority of the stars we see are still intact for the time being, it depends alot on how distant they are.

By the way did you know 1 million Seconds is 11 days and that 1 Billion seconds = 33 years.
If you dont trust me Google it!

Answer 6

Not all of them are dead. Some of them are and it has just taken millions of light years for their light to reach us. Astronomers have methods to detect different types of light and many times we are just viewing the residual light of these stars.

We can use a star's luminosity to determine how long that light took to reach us. Using some standard rules about star life and death cycles we can usually determine if that star is still "live" or "dead"

Answer 7

first of all heres wat i think ! Yes some are dead an No some aren't i think notice i said i think im not sure because im no astronomer ! I think our star (the sun ) has died the reason i think that is if it was any more gaseous we would die from it because it would be so hot! and plus astronomers have found black spots on the sun where they say it has died out in that certain spot! they reason i say that is because I think the sun is still burning because of how gaseous and bright an hot it was before it died so its gonna take it billions of years to just go out if it ever goes out! this may be incorrect so if im wrong somebody plz correct me! sry tried to help as much as i could dude!

okay i seen some replys on this topic so i decided to put this as stumper for most of you who say it takes billions of years for the light to reach us okay if thats true how COME we see shooting stars are u sayin that they went off centries ago and the lights just now reaching us !! i say that because it so clear out there i don't think it takes that long for light to hit us i just can't understand that ! and another thing have you heard about the cigarette cherries they say you can see them from a mile away well if you where a mile away from me in a clear universe like that your sayin it would take an hour for me to see the light from that cigarette thats why i think its not true im not saying im right its just my theory! Correct me if im wrong!

an another thing i just thought about if that was true then that means we would not have night cause the light would just keep comming and not stop till 3 days later so therefore would not have a night! im just thinking im curious myself fight now! im just thinking up some good theories!

Answer 8

The Milky way is about 100,000 light years in diameter so we see the light from the furthest star as it was 100,000 years ago. 100,000 is a trivial amount of time to even the shortest lived stars so it is safe to say what we see is pretty much as they currently are - going strong!

Answer 9

Probably not all, though many of them certanly are. Whats far more interesting to me is the prospect that there are millions of stars out there whose light we can't see yet. We are seeing the remnants of a lost age of stars, while the stars of the new age exist undetected.

Answer 10

no, most of them are just fine, however, some are so far away, that the light reaching us has taken thousands of years to get this far, and some have indeed gone dead, or collided with something and exploded..