Since space is Extremely cold why does the temperature not smother out the heat from stars?

Question

Like what happens when you try to light a match in really cold weather the flame does not last very long on it's own.

Answer 1

The day side of the moon reaches over 200 degress fahrenheit. Not very cold is it? Also, when you get out near Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune you have to realize that these planets put out more heat than they get from the sun, so their local environment is warmer than many expects.

Also, the Corona (the outer layer of the sun - where the electrons are located out AWAY from the sun is over 4 million degrees!). So that's alot of heat and we only get less than like 1/10th of 1% or so on Earth. So we get next to nothing of what the sun actually puts out, thank god.

Answer 2

WELL THE TEMP IS -459.67. The only alternatives to reflection of photons are absorption of photons and the transmission of photons (i.e., being transparent). I haven't heard that supercold materials become transparent, so I assume that supercold materials (with a temperature close to the absolute zero point) absorb and reflect photons just like warm materials, so that supercold things can be visible against a suitable background with a different color or brightness. If you are somewhere where everything has the same temperature and there is no light from outside, then the surroundings are filled with (heat) radiation (including visible light) that appears equally strong from all directions, so then you can't see anything because there are no differences in color or brightness anymore. So, you can only see contrasts if there are large temperature differences between the sources of light in your surroundings. Sunlight is sent into space at a temperature of about 6000 kelvin (degrees above absolute zero), which is much higher than the typical temperature in our environment (which is about 290 kelvin), and that is why things on Earth that the Sun shines on can show so much contrast (in color or brightness). The heat radiation that things emit depends on the things' temperature. The higher the temperature is, the higher the average frequency (and lower the wavelength) of the radiation. We are much colder than stars, so we emit heat radiation at a much greater wavelength than stars, namely infrared radiation instead of visible light. Light, which normally travels the 240,000 miles from the Moon to Earth in less than two seconds, has been slowed to the speed of a minivan in rush-hour traffic -- 38 miles an hour. An entirely new state of matter, first observed four years ago, has made this possible. When atoms become packed super-closely together at super-low temperatures and super-high vacuum, they lose their identity as individual particles and act like a single super- atom with characteristics similar to a laser. Physicists acknowledge they can never reach the coldest conceivable temperature, known as absolute zero and long ago calculated to be minus 459.67°F. To physicists, temperature is a measure of how fast atoms are moving, a reflection of their energy—and absolute zero is the point at which there is absolutely no heat energy remaining to be extracted from a substance. The speed of light, as we've all heard, is a constant: 186,171 miles per second in a vacuum. But it is different in the real world, outside a vacuum; for instance, light not only bends but also slows ever so slightly when it passes through glass or water. Still, that's nothing compared with what happens when Hau shines a laser beam of light into a BEC: it's like hurling a baseball into a pillow.

Answer 3

Temperature isn't going to affect a match lighting... there are a lot of factors. (I'm just using the match as an example) A match will not light any faster or burn hotter in the desert than in the tundra (neglecting wind and humidity). The fire needs fuel to burn, and as long as there is fuel, it will burn. I don't know very much about astronomy, but I know stars are made of plasma, which is a super heated gas and also the fourth state of matter. They generate energy from fusion, and as long as there is enough matter for the reactions to keep happening, the energy released will be light and heat, regardless of outside temperature.

Answer 4

your match will die out because the atoms in the air around it are very hungry for heat energy and eat it all up. this is not the same for stars because there are so very few atoms in space to steal it all.

short story long, the match is losing it's energy due to convection, as the heat is absorbed by the air surrounding it. there's no air surrounding a star, just space, so the only heat coming off of a star is via radiation, and radiation actually travels quite nicely through space.

Answer 5

Stars are extremely hot, and heat flows from hot to cold, not cold to hot.

To some people: If you don't know the laws of thermodynamics or otherwise don't know anything about it, stop saying "cold is the lack of heat". It is not. Heat is just another term for work, or change in energy, heat is a concept humans made up.

Answer 6

Space is not cold. It isn't hot either. Only material things can have a temperature and space is not a material thing. And stars produce large amounts of heat. Really large. Buy eventually, after millions or billions of years, they do run out of nuclear fuel and cool off.

Answer 7

Because stars are Extremely hot.

But in the end, the cold *will* eventually smother them out anyway. That's how some people think the universe will end - it's called the 'heat death of the universe'

Answer 8

The heat of a star on the surface is thousands of degrees while space is only -300. In order to cancel out the heat they'd have to be equal.

The Sun heats space in the immediate vicinity.

Answer 9

Cold temperatures are because of the lack of heat - cold does not "smother" heat. Stars can exist for millions or billions of years because of nuclear fusion.

Answer 10

because of atmospheres, it keeps the fire going. Also, stars do die out after a hella long time...just like a match but it lasts for a loooooong time.