/sci/ - Science & Math

closest would be alpha centuri.

instead of seeing stars from another galaxy, we actually see the galaxy itself since it's so far away, it looks like a star.

>>3029377
I mean to say the closest galaxy would be the Andromeda (sp)

my mistake.

They are all from our universe. That much is certain.

Other galaxies are so distant that to your eyes they look like a single point. People confused them with stars until a century ago.

>>3029367
Assuming this isn't a troll...
The stars you see at night are other suns, trillions of miles away. One lightyear is the distance that light travels in one year, about 5.88 trillion miles. The nearest star is Alpha Centauri (or Proxima Centauri?) and it is 4.3 light years away. The stars you see with the naked eye can be anywhere from 4.3 to thousands of lightyears away. A few of the 'stars' you may see might actually be entire galaxies, but you can't really make it out. Our own galaxy has over 100 billion stars, and measures 100,000ly across.

the closest star is the sun
it is approximately 1 AU away
>are these only stars from our universe or even further away
derp

>100 billion stars in the milky way galaxy
>I can barely see 10 stars on an average night

;_;

>>3029392

I live in the suburbs of a populous city and I can still see 100+ stars at night.

>>3029382
so stars are actually galaxies?

>>3029399
No. Galaxies are made up of billions and billions of Stars. It is just difficult to tell which points of light in the sky are galaxies and which are stars with the naked eye. They look the same because galaxies are so far away you can't make out the individual stars.

I believe the stars you can see with the naked eye are generally within 1000 light years. The rest of the galaxy appears as a blurry cloud.

Some apparent "stars" are actually globular clusters. I don't think any distant galaxies are actually bright enough to appear as stars to the naked eye. The only galaxies you can see are our own and the two Magellanic clouds.

>>3029436
While the distance does play a role, most of the stars you see are the brightest stars, not the closest.

Same universe. Good question, though. Acceptably naive. Not an idiotic question at all.

Op, listen up. The question is not where but when. A fuckload of the stars you see don't exist anymore right now. You see their light but they're already nebulae or whatever.

>>3029466
Very few, if any, of the stars we can see now have died. They are simply too close.

star's aren't far away, their just really really small.

>>3029535

>>3029452
You can see many more than just those, even with the naked eye. Andromeda is the closest galaxy to our own and it's visible as a fuzzy blob.

>>3029981
Andromeda is not the closest galaxy to our own. The Milky Way has several satellite galaxies that are substantially closer, including the aforementioned Magellanic clouds. It's in a grey area as far as being visible to the naked eye. It's bright enough and big enough but very diffuse.

>Does not understand what a universe is

>>3029531
Good job.
Also stars live for quite a while man, or something.

Also, some of the stars you see are planets, like Venus, Mars and Jupiter

> are these only stars from our universe
lolwhat

I don't think you know what "universe" means. I think you mean "galaxy". In that case, most stars visible to the naked eye are part of our galaxy. Most "stars" visible to Hubble are other galaxies.

>>3030742
Clearly you have a bigger penis than the uneducated 12 year old that is OP, I hope you feel better about yourself.

>>3029412
not OP but just wondering: is the light we see from galaxies from their stars or from this big ball of light in the middle?
pic related

>>3033962
Uh, it's all stars. Any visible galaxy is probably mostly due to the stars near the core.

>>3033993
but is the ball of light just a greater cluster of stars because of the black hole in the center, or is it the light emitted from the particles spinning around the black hole at near light speed?

>>3034019
99.999999% of the light emitted by the central bulge is from the stars there. The black hole, while luminous, doesn't put out as much energy as the billions of massive stars there.

>>3034052
Oh, before someone gets their shit all up, that number is an approximation, pulled from ASS (American Scientific Studies), since that was the most convenient source.