Inspired by a post that suggested “you look up, at the night sky, at stars whose lights have already gone out,” the link below leads to a list of the 300 brightest stars visible from Earth, down to magnitude 3.54. More would be visible if you live in the country, but my assertion will hold nonetheless.

The most distant of those stars is Deneb, one of the bright stars in the Summer Triangle, at around 3000 light years. That means when you look at Deneb, you are seeing it as it appeared 3000 years ago.

Impressive, but it hasn’t gone out in that time. The shortest-lived stars have lifetimes of millions of years (but most last billions or trillions).

All of those stars are still burning brightly.

http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/stars.html

#Astronomy #Poetry #InpsirationalThoughtOfTheDay