Is all of our universe… lit? Can you be hurtling through space and accidentally fly head first into a planet because oops you didn’t have your headlights on?

Question

Is all of our universe… lit? Can you be hurtling through space and accidentally fly head first into a planet because oops you didn’t have your headlights on?

In: Physics

Answer 1

You know how in a lot of sci fi movies they pass through an asteroid field and the pilot has to maneuver the spaceship expertly to avoid colliding with the Asteroids?

In real life, you can pretty much go through the Asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter with your eyes closed and won’t hit anything at all. In fact, you probably won’t even _see_ an Asteroid unless you look through a nice telescope.

Space is empty. _Really_ empty.

Another way to think of it this: In about 4 billion years, Andromeda and Milky Way will collide with each other. Two galaxies with 500billion – 1 trillion stars _each_. The fascinating part? Even after the galaxies collide, pretty much none of the individual stars will hit _anything at all_.