What is the primary source of light in the Universe?
Posted on November 5, 2008
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8 Responses to “What is the primary source of light in the Universe?”
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It is GOD!!
Every single star.
Stars.
Moonlight is simply sunlight reflected off the Moon;’s surface. It emits no light of its own. People on the Moon might think the Earth was very bright, but the same is true: the Earth emits no light of its own (The combined luminosity of electric lights switched on in cities is negligible in comparison to reflected sunlight).
Nuclear fusion reactions in the core of stars, turning hydrogen into helium at very high temperatures produces both heat and light, as matter is turned into energy in the process of hydrogen being fused to form helium (Einstein’s equation: E = mc^2 can quantify this).
The Sun is the nearest star but by no means the biggest or brightest in the Universe. To find out the brightest (defined by how bright they would all look at a distance of ten parsecs away, for a fair comparison, you need to look at tables of stars’ absolute magnitudes, not their apparent (as seen from earth) magnitudes.
The first Column is APPARENT MAGNITUDES, the second column is ABSOLUTE MAGNITUDES and the 3rd column is LUMINOSITY COMPARED TO THE SUN = 1
Sun ?26.8 4.8 1
Deneb 1.25 ?8.73 250,000
Rigel 0.12 ?8.1 100,000
Betelgeuse 0.41?7.2 63,000
(Negative magnitude numbers are brighter than positive ones, and a star that is 5 magnitudes brighter then another one is 100 times as bright as it.) (eg a first magnitude star as compared to a 6th magnitude star.)
As the eye cannot see stars of 4.8 magnitude or higher from urban environments, the sobering fact is that if the sun were at ten parseces distance, we would need a telescooe for it to be visible from a city, though on a clear night in the countryside, you would be able to see it and stars of 5th and 6th magnitude with the naked eye, if you knew where to look. It is that insignificant in the scale of things in the Universe.
In terms of size it is pretty small, too. Betelgeouse, a red giant in Orion is as big in diameter as the orbit of Jupiter. That’s pretty damn big and dwarfs the Sun in comparison.
The Sun is just not in the Premier League, More like the Beazer Homes Reserve Teams League, 3rd Division, relegation zone.
in the milky way galaxy, sun is the prime source.
but when it comes 2 universe, sun is not the prime source. in fact, in the universe, nothing is the prime source of light. the stars do emit some light but this light is not enuf, that’s why the universe is black.
it might be that every galaxy has its own sun 2 give off light.
see there is nothing like primary source but if we consider big bang theory then the primary source would have been the big burning ball which blated allover the universe
But if you ask why do they glow then the clear reason is I would say the burning of gases and conversion of hydrogen atoms to helium causes the radiated light
In the solar system, the primary source of light is the sun, which is actually a star. The universe consists of innumerable stars like the sun, and they give light in their respective areas. The basic sorce of light is some kind of burning which takes place in the sun also.
It must be remembered, however, that there are still many many areas where man has not been able to poke his nose into, or not able to get an answer in spite of poking. This is where the existence of God comes in!!! For example, can you imagine for a moment, what will be left over if there is no universe?If some one has power, there are 2 parts involved, the one who receives power, and the one who gives that power. If God is all powerful, who gives the power to him? Where does that source get the power from? Well, these are questions which no one will answer. We only have to accept the fact that there is a power above us, and that is all! We do not know anything more at present, and not likely to know in future, either!!!
It depends on what you mean by that. If you mean the primordial source of light, well the source of light and everything else is the Big-Bang, of course we can’t see that primordial light, so the “oldest” light we can “see” is the CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background). In the recent Universe, the prmiary sources of light are stars.
Outer space is pitch black. The smaller stars we see at night are there, but are not hot enough or large enough to give off enough light. The major light sources would be from the larger hot stars like our sun. Hope this helps.