2006-11-19 05:00:44 · 9 answers · asked by Tanjoubi 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
I am an MD. This is a very interesting question. The resolution of the naked eye among people with the finest vision is about 1 arc minute. Star discs are far, far, smaller than this, so how can the eye see something that is that small? The answer is that a typical star image, though exceedingly small, is nevertheless very bright when compared to the night sky. The star image will appear as a diffraction (Airy) disk on the surface of your retina that is about one arc minute in diameter that is too bright to be ignored. Your retinal cells process the incoming light and send the signal to your brain, and what you perceive is a tiny bright speck. This is perhaps equivalent to your digital camera showing a star image consisting of a single pixel being illuminated. I hope this helps.
2006-11-19 05:45:23 · answer #1 · answered by Sciencenut 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
In space the light from the stars has nothing to stop it or slow it down. So it just travels through nothing in all directions untill it hits something. In most cases when it hits earth, we see the star. But if there is interferrence between us and that star then we wont see the light. Often times the light takes millions of years to reach us so the star we are looking at is very old compard to the actual star millions of miles away. Its like looking into the past.
2006-11-19 05:03:46 · answer #2 · answered by Elite 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The stars that we can see are visible to as they 'burn' with such intensity that even after travelling for sometimes millions of years through space, and spreading out along the way, the intensity of the light is still great enough to be detected by our eyes.
For a comparison, the sun would not even be visible to the naked eye from our nearest star, alpha proxima.
2006-11-19 05:10:35 · answer #3 · answered by bergomasco 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Actually, the stars you are looking at may not even be there anymore. The light travels for so many years that looking at a star is looking hundreds of years into the past.
2006-11-19 05:09:04 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The sam way that we can see the sun. The stars are very bright so even though they are far away we can see them.
2006-11-19 05:08:51 · answer #5 · answered by actresst22 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The answer must be a star in our own milky way. We also sit in a spiral arm of our milky way. So the stars Rho en Phi of Cassiopeia (naked eye) seem to stand the furthest of all known naked eye stars. If you look in the direction of our milky way's center (which is in the direction of Sagittarius), then also the naked eye star Mu from Sagittarius seems to be the furthest visible to us (you must know many stars are invisible due to dark dust clouds between us and the milky way's center)
2016-03-29 01:40:41 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The brighter a torch is, the further away you can see it, same for stars except they are much brighter, so you can see them further away, but you can't see the ones that are too far away to see, if you see what I mean!
2006-11-19 05:06:19 · answer #7 · answered by Sangmo 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
what you are seeing is the lite from the star . it has been traveling a long time
2006-11-19 05:05:00 · answer #8 · answered by treefrog 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because they are so bright...
.... I guess
2006-11-19 05:05:50 · answer #9 · answered by Princess 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋