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You are correct in your geometry, but you forgot one thing. The earth receives a smaller portion of light for stars that further away, but the number of stars a
by gpsx 11y ago
You are correct in your geometry, but you forgot one thing. The earth receives a smaller portion of light for stars that further away, but the number of stars at that radius goes up by the exact same amount. So from any shell the amount of light we get is the same. If the shells go out to infinity, the light becomes infinite (well, according to the naive argument).
- meric 11y agoThe nearest star is the Sun. With a giant Sun nearest to Earth, it's impossible for the number of stars to go up proportionally as distance to Earth increases. There isn't 4 suns at 2 AU, and at 100000 light years wide, with 63000 AUs per light year, the milky way does't contain (63000 * 100000)^2 stars. There needs to be 4 billion times more stars in the milk way for there to be proportionally as many stars as in our solar system. You can fill the entire sky with AA battery torches and they won't be as bright as the one stuck right up to your eye. The night sky is dark, but it doesn't mean it isn't full of rays of lights heading our way. It's darker than the day sky due to the Sun being so close, yes, but the night sky is full of light, everywhere we look. It's only because the way our minds perceive relatives, we call the night sky "dark".