Just a thought, and excuse me if this has been posed before (as I’m sure it has), but…
If I can see millions of stars at night when I look out my window in the city, and billions of stars when I look up at night in the middle of the countryside, why are there never stars visible in footage taken from space?
Like, it should be blinding up there with all those stars and nothing to get in the way of their light.
Cheers
M
Never? Seriously? These are images from the Hubble telescope. Sure, some pics have more stars than others. Depends on where you are pointing.
Sorry to double post, but I just noticed this bit.
It’s space. There’s a lot of space between all those stars. They aren’t just sitting shoulder to shoulder up there.
Apart from super sensitive telescope cameras I mean…
I can’t recall seeing any stars in the background of video shot from space - astronauts fixing the shuttle, etc.
Incorrect camera appertures perhaps? Just a thought.
Oh, so you mean, in a photo like this, why can’t we see stars over the shoulder of the astronaught?
I imagine part of the problem with these sorts of angles is that the reflective light of the earth drowns out the light of any stars that lie beyond. Similar problem for any photos taken over the horizon of the moon and other planets. My WAG.
You’ve got two issues here:
The answer to 1) is just as you and Pullet have suggested, you’re looking at an astronaut in a white spacesuit against a black background and the camera has to be stopped down so far it doesn’t show the faint stars. This one of the silly arguments that gets trotted out by people who claim the moon landings were faked :rolleyes:
The answer to 2) is more interesting. You’ve hit on “Olber’s Paradox”: which can be put as ‘If the universe is infinite, and there are stars in all directions, which ever direction we choose to look in we should be able to see stars. Any line of sight should eventually intersect with a star, so all the sky should be bright.’ There are a number of possible answers but the generally accepted one is that the universe is not infinitely old and, as the speed of light is finite, there hasn’t been time for the light from stars further than a certain distance to reach us yet. In fact Olber’s Paradox is taken as evidence of the Big Bang.
One final thought - Sorry but you can’t see millions or billions of stars! With the naked eye, on a dark night in the middle of the countryside you would be luck to see more than 2000 
Actually, in the countryside, you’d be able to see The Milky Way, which has millions of stars merging together to form a bright band.
Question for astronomers: Does the milky Way appear like this because we are on the edge? If we were on a planet close to the centre of the Galaxy, would the glow fill the sky?
I had never seen the Milky Way until I was on vacation in Cloudcroft, NM. I looked up on a spectactularly clear night and … OMG. Words can’t describe it. The things you miss growing up in the city.
The real solution to Olber’s paradox is the red shift. Virtually nothing that is naked eye visible is outside the Milky Way. The only exceptions, as far as I am aware, are the greater and lesser Magellanic clouds, dwarf galaxies near us and viewable only from the southern hemisphere, the galaxy in Andromeda, and–barely visible–the galaxy in the triangle. Since the further out you are, the more the redshift, you will never see more.
Actually, you can see thousands of individual stars at night. I think the number of stars visible to the naked eye is around six thousand.
The idea that redshift causes distant galaxies to become invisible is based on a misunderstanding of the redshift. Actually, galaxies radiate in just about all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, so all that happens is that the ultraviolet light emitted by these galaxies redshifts into the visible range. Therefore you can still see them. The true explanation of Olbers’ paradox is as explained by MarcusF.
Don’t forget about dust.
I thought we were talking about Lance Bass! Is it true that wanna-be start Paris Hilton wants to take a trip in space? Picture the "Simple Life’-on the ISS!
There are approximately 6,000 stars individually visible to the naked eye, approximately evenly divided across two hemispheres, only one of which one can see from Earth at any given moment. In theory, almost all 6,000 would be visible to Joe Spacewalker, plus perhaps a few hundred more at the edge of visibility that are dimmed below visible magnitude by the atmosphere (the last is speculation, but seems reasonable). However: you can see stars at night because it’s dark. It’s dark because the Sun is not shining. In space the Sun will always be visible (barring its being eclipsed by something else near you), and nearly anything within a reasonably large arc from it will be invisible simply because your eyes will not be able to adapt to dim-light vision. Then, presuming you’re in Earth orbit (since nobody’s hypothecated where “in space” you are, and nearly all humans in space have been operating in Earth orbit), one of two things will be true: you will be on the night side of Earth and it will occlude a fair proportion of sky, or, worse, you’ll be on the day side and a big, bright Earth will have about the same effect as the Sun for another large chunk of sky.
If your object is to see stars, go to the Southwest and visit the desert at night – you’ll see more, cheaper, and in far more comfort than on a shuttle ride or spacewalk.
IANAAstronomer but the answer to your question is yes, we are on the edge of the Milky Way about 26,000 light years from the center. This link gives a picture of where the earth is in relation to the rest of the galaxy (not a very good picture sadly but good enough for this purpose).
When you see the Milky Way in the night sky you are looking in towards the center of our galaxy.
The other common solution being that the universe is not infinite in expanse.
Not necessarily - it’s brightest in that direction, but it extends right round the sky in the galactic plane.
Huh?
Looking away from the center there just aren’t many stars left such that you see the bright band that you do when looking towards the center of the galaxy. I am not following what you are getting at.
That’s because they’re not really in space! They’re actors in fake spacesuits hanging from wires in a giant black soundstage in Burbank! And there’s no stars because… uh… the gubmint are dumm and they forgetted!!one
The Milky Way forms a continuous ring across the sky, both in the direction towards the galactic center, to the sides, and away. But the galactic center doesn’t seem extrardinarily brighter than the other directions because there are so many dust clouds and nebulae blocking our view of the core.
