Stars 'die' all the time. I have always wondered why the constellation stars never burn out. It would be pretty cool if there was no explanation, but I am sure someone has one. Thanks!
2007-03-23 14:10:50 · 10 answers · asked by pinkluxe 3 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
They will eventually... Stars "live" for many hundreds of millions, even billions of years. It is impractical to think that one of the few hundred million stars visible from the earth would die within our lifetimes. Our lives are so short compared to the life of a star.
The light from distant stars takes a very long time to reach us here, even traveling at 186,000 miles per second (the speed of light), so essentially, when you look at a star, you are looking back in time.
2007-03-23 14:19:57 · answer #1 · answered by khill 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Well although many stars do 'burn out' you have to keep in mind that stars have lifespans of billions of years.
So the stars located in constellations thousands of years ago, are probably still viewable today, because of the fact that a few thousand years is akin to the blink of an eye for stars.
2007-03-23 14:20:39 · answer #2 · answered by A.R 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Light, as it may seem to be, does not cover all distance instantaneously. The stars that you're viewing are millions of light - years (how far light travels in a year) away from Earth. The stars we are viewing could very well be burnt out, but from our perspective we'll still see the light for millions of years to come, because the last of the light is still traveling towards us.
its kinda like this: If you stand right next to a person clapping their hands, you see them clap their hands and hear the sound instantaneously. But from down the street, the sound will happen after you see the hands clap together, appearing to come from nowere. There was no clap the second you heard it, but the resultant sound came from the clap. Same sorta idea with light.
2007-03-23 14:21:40 · answer #3 · answered by Naesen Y 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
All stars die out, and stars in constellations are no exception. I guess we just haven't lost a star in any constellations we know yet, but it will happen eventually.
2007-03-23 14:15:34 · answer #4 · answered by slamsam1221 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Sure they do. We just don't live long enough to see them die too often. In addition, if a star that is 50,000 light years away were to quit shining, then it would be 50,000 years before we would notice.
There are observations of stars exploding, but even that show takes some time to play out.
2007-03-23 14:57:53 · answer #5 · answered by Randy 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They do burn out. But their lifetimes are in the order of billions of years, much longer than the human race has been around. It is unlikely that we will see one of these explode (even Betelgeuse and Antares, which are red giants, are not _this_ unstable). Apart from these two, the other stars forming the constellation figures are somewhere around the middle of their life.
2007-03-23 14:39:40 · answer #6 · answered by Daniel B 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Do Stars Die Out
2017-02-20 15:43:55 · answer #7 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes, they do burn out as often as other stars. We can only see stars die rarely though.
2007-03-23 15:11:11 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
They do. Orion has had twelve stars appear to burn out since 1954
2007-03-23 14:15:22 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Thats not true, they just haven't yet
2007-03-23 20:03:43 · answer #10 · answered by dylan k 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋