Are most stars in the sky alreadt burned out?

Question

I heard that many stars are just excess light from stars that burned out years ago.

Answer 1

First of all stars do not burn anything. They fuse lighter elements in to heavier elements which releases tremendous amounts of energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation. The process of burning requires oxidization and if stars did this they would burn out much much quicker. But most stars are still in their main sequence stage as lindajane has already stated. The light you see from a star that is 100,000 light years away left that star exactly 100,000 years ago. So when you look at the star you are seeing it as it was in the past. Most stars live in to the billions of years so they are not likely dead yet.

Answer 2

Not likely. Even the farthest stars in our galaxy are at most 100,000 light years away, and they appear to be in the prime of life (a star burns for billions of years), so they are all probably still shining just like they did when the light first left them.

Answer 3

that might be true in other galaxies, but probably not here... It depends on how far the light is coming from. For example, 2 billion light years away, many stars might of gone supernova or black hole. But if you mean if a star completely burnt out into a 'dead star' then that wont happen for another 200 billion years anywhere.

Answer 4

You will never know in your lifetime..........

BWAHAHA!!

Seriously though, not likely. Stars burn for billions of years.