How can the sun light the earth but dosen't light up space?

Question

How can the sun light the earth but dosen't light up space?

Answer 1

the intensity of light decreases as the source of light becomes farther

the earth is near to the sun so it experiences a higher intensity of light compared to the farther heavenly bodies around it

Answer 2

The suns rays travel through space, but since space is a vacuum there is nothing for them to reflect off and 'light up' - no solid matter, or even air molecules.

Answer 3

Cause we pay the electricity bill....and boy is it high!!!

Answer 4

Light reflects off of objects, since space is essentially a vacuum there is nothing for the light to "light-up"

Answer 5

The earth's atmosphere is what gives our planet its blue sky in the daytime.

Answer 6

Sunlight travels straight outwards beyond our solar system.

But there need to be objects or substance to reflect it.

Our moon & each of the planets is lit up by our sun.

Answer 7

The sun lights up space just as much as the earth.  However, there is nothing in space to reflect the light back to our eyes, so space looks dark.

Answer 8

There must be something for the light to hit and deflect from, space is a vacum so there is nothing to light up, as for earth light deflects of many objects and into our eyes which allows us to see :D

Answer 9

1 the earth has something to refect light on (atmosphere) 2 space is mainly made from dark atoms and 3 do you think that the sun lights up the whole universe

Answer 10

because its vacuum...nothing is there

Answer 11

We see light when it bounces of something and into our eyes.

We don't see air because light goes through it and doesn't bounce back.  We don't see glass very well because almost all the light goes through it.

Space reflects no light (being more transparent than glass or air).  If you put anything in space (like the moon or the earth or a satelite or a comet or a floating astronaut) that thing will be well lit by the light of the sun (if it isn't shadowed).

Space, being nothing, does not reflect light, and looks black.

Answer 12

So the Earth has stuff that can reflect light.

Space, especially solar system space, does have a little dust to see.  From a really dark sky sight, and when there's no Moon out, and looking it just the right direction, there is a glow called the Zodiacal Light.  It's the reflection of light off of certain kinds of dust in space.  Not just any dust, certain dust acts as retroreflectors.  Basically, any round bead of glass can be a retroreflector.  The light goes into it, bounces around inside a bit, and much of it either goes out the way it came, or at some small angle.

Rainbows are caused by retroreflectors.  The droplets of water reflect light back, but some of it gets refracted out at an angle.  And the angle depends on the wavelength of light - so the colors get spread in a deterministic way.

Anyway, there's not much in space, so it isn't totally brilliant.  We are reminded that the Sun's atmosphere goes out to about 100 AU - heliopause.