Can a star disappear from the sky?

Question

Every night, if the weather allows it, I sit outside to enjoy a few beers and alittle bit of grass. A few nights ago I was looking at the stars when one disappeared while I was focused on it. How can this be possible?

Answer 1

> How can this be possible?

My first guess is that it had something to do with the little bit of grass. :-)

Stars may fade, but they never "wink out" suddenly. Some possibilities:

1. Something moved in front of it. Possible a cloud. In rare instances, a star can be eclipsed for a short time by a dark object like an asteroid--but if this was a bright star, such an event would make headlines in astronomical circles, and I haven't heard anything about it.
2. It could have been a meteor that was heading directly toward you. Such meteors don't appear to move across the sky; they just suddenly light up and then suddenly vanish. But they only last a second or two. How long were you looking at it? (Any drug-induced time dilation?)
3. It could have been an airplane, traveling more or less along your line of sight (so it didn't appear to move), and it turned off its headlights or changed its angle in such a way that the headlights weren't shining at you any more.

Answer 2

It is unlikely that you watched a star burn out. You may have briefly glimpsed a satellite that passed into the shadow of the Earth. Really when you get down to it the night sky is an illusion. You are, for the most part, looking back in time. The light left those stars in some cases while the pyramids were being built or before there was ever any intelligent beings on the Earth to look up at the sky. Those stars are not even in the same place they were when you looking up as when that light left it's surface.

Ponder this the next time, fellow midnight toker.
Every grain of sand has been around longer than any man alive or ever will be born. Immortality can be held in the palm of your hand. In the end only the little grains of sand will be left.

Answer 3

The only other possibility I can think of other than Geoff's answer might be that the "star" was a satillite. If it was very dim and you aren't living in a big city, it may have been a satellite moving into the shadow of the Earth. If you were stoned, you may not have noticed the gentle motion accross the sky before it dissappeared. Drugs won't help you accomplish anything! :o)

Answer 4

How long did it disappear? Rememebr space has stuff floating around in it, not very densly, but it's there. It's possible an asteroid got in the way, or maybe a satellite around the Earth. If the star doesn't show up again soon you might seriously consider writing to an astronomy place and telling them. It's always possible you stumbled onto something they haven't seen yet.

Answer 5

If you were stoned, you were probably staring steadily at the star. Any object that you stare at fixedly will disappear until your eye moves again...that's the way we perceive things.

Stars don't just disappear. There are variable stars, which vary in magnitude over time, but they fade very gradually. And if a star is dying, it actually _increases_ in brightness, becoming a nova or a supernova.

Please folks, don't guess about things when you don't know the answer. It just makes you look dumb!

Answer 6

stars don't just disappear - there's got to be an explanation - perhaps some high cloud cover came in or the star moved and you lost track of it (you were high after all) - the interference from the atmosphere causes stars to appear to twinkle - and too much light on the ground nearby can 'pollute' the sky causing you to see fewer stars - perhaps a sports stadium nearby turned its lights on - as a star dies it either blows up (supernova) or gets very dim - but this takes quite a while to happen -

Answer 7

if a star died, it would have been very bright to begin with, and then you would have seen an explosion. i dont mean like an end of the world explosion, but you would be able to see it. its also possible that a large object eclipsed the star. i have no idea what that could have been, i am just listing possibilities. its also possible that it was just a reflection from a satellite. it caught the sun just right, and reflected it into your eyes for a short amount of time, and then rotated enough to reflect elsewhere.

Answer 8

The stars that we see are millions of light years away, so when we see them, we see what the stars looked liked millions or years of ago. The star that you saw probably died. Yes stars can die. So the light from the star kept traveling to Earth, although the star died millions of years ago, and that moment you saw it, the last of the light traveled to Earth, and the star could not give off any more light, so it seemed to disappear.

Answer 9

stars eventually die, so when the rest of their light has traveled to earth, they'll dissapear from our night sky.

Answer 10

You must remember stars are burning gas in space. They are said to die and be born. Appear and disappear.