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Most of the stars you can see with your naked eye aren't already burnt out. The furthest away star you can see is less than 17,000 light years away. Under normal conditions, you're likely not looking at anything past 1000 light years. Lots of the stars you see are within 100. Sirius is less than ten. If most of these stars in the sky were already dead, constellations would have changed drastically over thousands of years.
With a telescope, you can see millions and billions of light years, and in the case of those which are more than a few billion years old, they are likely already dead.
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[–] usul 0 points 8 points 8 points (+8|-0) ago
Most of the stars you can see with your naked eye aren't already burnt out. The furthest away star you can see is less than 17,000 light years away. Under normal conditions, you're likely not looking at anything past 1000 light years. Lots of the stars you see are within 100. Sirius is less than ten. If most of these stars in the sky were already dead, constellations would have changed drastically over thousands of years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightest_stars
With a telescope, you can see millions and billions of light years, and in the case of those which are more than a few billion years old, they are likely already dead.
[–] tombear66 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
Quite right. Thanks for the clarification, I was mashing them all together there wasn't I?