Why is it dark in space but not on earth when the sun is itself in space?

Answer 1

Because I nicked all the light bulbs.

Answer 2

Actually, when you are in Earth's orbit, or on the Moon, for example, it is very bright when you are in sunlight. Even brighter than on Earth, because the atmosphere screens out some of the light.

If you look at photos taken from the surface of the Moon, you'll notice that no stars are visible. That's because it's daytime and the environment is too bright for the stars to be seen by a camera.

On Earth the atmosphere scatters blue light coming from the sun. This maes the sun more yellowish as seen from Earth, but it also makes the sky blue. The blue light of the sky is actually scattered sunlight. That's why you can't see stars during the day.

Answer 3

We only see light in a given direction if photons arrive from that direction and enter our eyes (or telescopes, or cameras, or...).

On Earth, sunlight strikes many things (including dust in air and air molecules) so that photons of lights arrive at us from all directions.

In space, where matter is a lot less packed, there are fewer things that sunlight can strike and return to our eyes.

Photons can also arrive from other stars (and we see those as separate sources against a background of larger areas devoid of photons).

The real question would be: it the universe really is infinite and there are an infinite number of stars, then how come we do not see star light in every direction (why is there any darkness at all).

This is called Oblers' Paradox (1813) and an equivalent question had been asked by Kepler in 1610.

The answer came with the understanding that light had a finite speed (light does not travel instantaneously) and the universe has a finite age. Light from the infinite number of stars that are at very large distances from us simply has not had time to get here yet.

Answer 4

The background is black because light from elsewhere in the Universe has not reached the Earth and never will because the Universe is getting bigger faster than the speed of light. There is also very little gas in space and it is almost empty, so there is not much matter to scatter the Sun's light.

Answer 5

It is dark at night since we do not see the sun light. We(on earth) do not receive enough light from any other star other than sun (Sun is the nearest star) that can lit up the space. We see several other stars but they are too far to light the space around us.

During day, we see the space as lit and bright. Since we are able to see only the light that is falling on us.

Answer 6

OK
Light can travel in space but needs to be reflected from something to become visible. Since there is no atmosphere and/or dust in the outer space, we see it as DARK and unlit.

Once sunlight enters Earth's atmosphere, the dust and other particles in the atmosphere cause the sunlight to scatter in a way as to make the sky APPEAR blue.

Answer 7

When light enters the atmosphere it is scattered by the particles in the atmosphere and as these particles are smaller than the light waves the blue will be the main colour scattered. At sunrise or sunset the light travels through a greater thickness of atmosphere by which most of the blue is scattered leaving red. Hence red sunset. Were the light not scattered it would be yellow hence the sun is yellow.

Answer 8

1

Answer 9

we can only see lights whenever it reflects from a substance.in the case of earth and other planets,the sunlights reflects on the surface and we can see itBut in the space where the light will get that surface area to reflect?

Answer 10

It seems dark in space because there is not much for the sun's light to reflect from.

We only "see" light when it actually hits something and reflects off it (dust, a moon, a planet etc).

Answer 11

Light is invisible unless it hits something. Look at the moon for instance - at times you only see part of it - the part that faces the sun. It is said that something doesn't exist unless it is lit!