At night, when you look up at the sky, you often see a multitude of stars to gaze at. However, have you ever tried stargazing from above, looking outside the window of an airplane?
You may have noticed that you can't see stars outside a plane window when you're flying. Have you ever wondered why this happens?
Let's turn to the scientists to provide us with some answers.
As you might know, the sun is the closest star to our planet. Despite its astonishing distance of 150,000,000 kilometers away, it only takes approximately eight minutes for sunlight to reach us on Earth.
In fact, the stars in the night sky are much farther from us. Whether we're on the ground or cruising at 35,000 feet above, our ability to observe the celestial display should theoretically remain unchanged.
There are several reasons why we often don't see stars outside the plane window when we're flying.
According to an article from Science ABC, if you are flying above a metropolitan area at night, you often won't see stars from the airplane window due to excessive artificial lighting below.
Another reason you don't see stars from the plane window is because of the moon's light. The luminance of the moon's light can also obscure the stars, making them difficult to see in the night sky from the plane window.
Others have shown, as reported by Medium, that theoretical astrophysicist and science writer Ethan Siegel explained: "From outside the house, someone looking in can see everything you’re up to. But if you want to see what’s going on outside, you need to turn off the lights inside and turn out the lights outside, don’t you?
"As a general rule, it needs to be darker at the place where you’re looking from than the place you’re looking to, or you won’t be able to see much of anything.
"If it weren’t for the lights of the plane itself, you would, in fact, be able to have some of the best skies available to humans."
