"The first high-altitude piloted balloon observation missions were launched in the late-1950s as part of the U.S. Navy’s Strato-Lab program. Between 1958 and 1959, the U.S. Navy launched four separate missions for numerous celestial observations high up in the atmosphere." - https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/hubble-there-was-operation-stargazer
This is a real thing that went down, checkout the video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K3u0rEmOoo its a minute long, Watch till the end and you'll see what i mean.
i cant believe this was passed off as real.
The nearest star is something like only 40 trillion miles away, but I wanted to check out your claim anyway. Many of the close visible stars are part of binary systems which would muck up the assumptions we have to make for the sake of the math, so I picked Epsilon Eridani, which is apparently one of the closest stars that is visible with the naked eye which is not in any kind of binary system with other stars (light sources).
We can find the apparent size relative to distance using basic trig, and use that ratio to compare to other objects we’re more familiar with to give us context.
tan(x) = radius / distance
⬇️
X = tan^-1(radius/distance)
radius = radius of star
distance = distance from us
Then to find something relatively similar to compare it to, we want pick a distance reasonable far away to test your claim. Your claim is that stuff in the atmosphere should be able to blot out the light, so I chose the edge of the atmosphere. Our equation will be similar to the one above:
Radius = distance * tan(x)
Radius = radius of comparator
Distance = distance to edge of atmosphere
tan(x) = computed ratio of star size relative to distance
Plugging in all the numbers, I find that the star Epsilon Eridani would appear the same size as a 1 micrometer object would appear at the edge of our atmosphere. A quick google search will show that a speck of dust is typically 1-100 micrometers in diameter. This means that a speck of dust at the edge of our atmosphere should be able completely block our view of this star.
Can someone tell me that I fucked this up?? I am not too sure I want to be correct about this one.