Submitted by ParticleDetector t3_z63e7m in Showerthoughts
EliOfTheSong t1_iy2m5ys wrote
Everyone's being adequately pedantic about what constitutes a 'sun', but what about what it means to 'see'? Sunlight doesn't block light from stars from reaching our eyes, it just drowns it out. So in the day, our eyes receive light from all the extra-solar stars plus one solar star.
ParticleDetector OP t1_iy2mpmy wrote
Haha! That makes a kind of sense! So…you see more suns in the daytime than at night?
And this goes down the rabbit hole of
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Nights where there are no moon - you see more stars because the moon occupies space in the sky
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Days where the sun and moon are in the sky together - you see least stars because now there are two bodies taking up some space in the sky.
EliOfTheSong t1_iy2nmfk wrote
Ah you make a point that we have to take into account the stars the sun is physically blocking. If there are at least two stars behind the sun (and whose light is not gravitationally lensed around it), then night is back in the lead.
ParticleDetector OP t1_iy2nqk4 wrote
Unless the moon is up and also blocks two stars!
Lol!
mfb- t1_iy3kjmp wrote
The Moon is up in the day as often as in the night.
Stars are not uniformly distributed so the number varies during the (24 hour) day in some complex pattern.
The_Real_Johnson t1_iy2yjs4 wrote
By your definition blind people see, interesting.
Cheyruz t1_iy2znx4 wrote
To continue the pedantism, I'd still argue that you don’t see the stars, even if you might see their light. If I stand around a corner from you and shine a flashlight on a wall you can see, you still don’t see the flashlight, just the light from it.
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