if space is just "nothingness", why is it black?

Question

do you think there's something beyond it that's black?

Answer 1

Space isn't just nothingness, it's full of gas and other particles and of course stars and planets. It's just that the particles clump together because of gravity, leaving empty spaces in between. It's black because there's nothing for the light to reflect off of the in between places-- so we see no light there and it appears black.

Answer 2

It isn't black, it is clear. Blackness is just what your eye reports to your brain when no light hits it. If you look in a direction in space where there are no stars, even thousands of light years away, then no light hits your eye you "see" black. And since stars are really small compared to the vastness of space, most directions have no star within only a few thousand light years, and stars farther away than that are just not bright enough to see.

Answer 3

Black is nothing but the absence of light. There is not a high enough density of stars in our edge of the rim to have a white sky. Moving to the core would improve seeing at night but watch the radiation and the large black hole.

Answer 4

Space isn't black. We just can't detect all of the color with unaided eyes. Look at http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/allyears.html, and be in awe.