As the title says, if there’s infinite stars, wouldn’t the light from all of them have reached us and made our night sky become completely white from the number of stars there are? Is there just not enough stars in proximity to earth for all the light to reach us in time to see?
I’m sure there’s a simple answer, but it’s 1am here and my brain can’t figure it out.
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You’ve hit on something called Olber’s Paradox. Brilliant people have been asking this question for hundreds of years, so you’re in good company.
No one pretends to know the *right* answer, but it’s likely a combination of the following –
1)Space is full of heavy things like galaxies that *bend* light away from us, like a lens. That light never reaches Earth so that star is invisible to us.
2) Space if full of clouds of dust and gas that absorb the light, like a dark tinted window, so we don’t see things behind those clouds.
3) Space is expanding which causes light to stretch out, which changes it’s “color”. So light that was originally red in color gets stretched out as it travels to Earth and is now X-rays, or Gamma rays, so our eyes cannot see it. This is part of the reason why we have X-ray Telescopes, to see that light.
4) Space is expanding and stars are still being born so the light from distant stars just hasn’t had enough time to reach Earth yet.
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