Why can't my headlights shine more than 160 feet in front of me, but stars can emit light that travels allllll the way the fuck to us here on the earth... I understand that on earth, there is atmosphere and whatnot that scatters and stops the light from shining further, but isnt starlight travelling through arguably much more atmosphere to shine all the way the fuck to my eyes? I mean- what the fuck- Why do people believe this shit? Can someone explain to me why I can see starlight from billions of miles away?
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There's no atmosphere in the vacuum of space to diffuse the light on its path from said star to our atmosphere, so said star light only begins to diffuse once it reaches our atmosphere.
Also bear in mind that light only travels at light speed (bit of a "duh" statement I suppose), so the star light we see is many, many, many years old by the time it reaches us. Almost like staring into the past if you want to think of it that way.