(March 19, 2016 at 2:36 am)ignoramus Wrote: Could someone tell me roughly what percentage of star light we see in the sky at night emanated originally from stars that no longer exist?
Well, that's a great question. Anybody? How would we find that out?
But considering that the light from Proxima Centauri (closest star to us) takes 4.24 years to get here, and Sirius (brightest "close" star) is 8.611 light years away . . . gee, most of what we see could be gone and we'd never know! The stars of Orion's Belt (Alnitak (736) Alnilam (1340) Mintaka (915)) could have burned out centuries ago. That's kind of a sad thought - I like that constellation.
"The family that prays together...is brainwashing their children."- Albert Einstein
