• Question: @ ciaran how are stars so bright

    Asked by Pluto108 to Ciarán on 17 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Ciarán O'Brien

      Ciarán O'Brien answered on 17 Nov 2014:

      It’s because they’re so huge, and they release so much energy.

      If you put a candle in a dark room, it’ll only light it up a little. ut if you put 100 candles in the same room it’d be lovely and bright. The stars are billions of miles away, but they’re also as bright as billions and billions and billions of candles, because nuclear fusion generates insane amounts of light energy.

      Astronomy and astrophysics are great ways of making yourself look tiny compared to the rest of the universe 🙂

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