A Wonderleaf question
Why is space so dark?
a real page from the book
Space looks dark because light needs something to hit before it can scatter into your eyes. Earth’s air spreads sunlight around and makes the sky glow, but empty space has almost no air, mist, or dust, so most light keeps traveling unseen.
That is why astronauts can stand in sunlight and still see a black sky above them. A star’s light reaches you only along particular paths; the huge stretches between objects stay dark because there is too little matter to glow.
Wonder words
- vacuum
- scatter
- photon
- sunlight
Try it out
Shine a flashlight through clear air, then through a dusty or steamy patch, and compare when the beam becomes easier to see.
Read the whole picture book
Watercolour scenes, straight answers, about three minutes cover to cover.
Open the picture bookKeep wondering
- How do satellites stay in orbit?
- Could people live on Mars someday?
- What is a shooting star?
- What is a black hole?
- Why do astronauts float in space?
- Why is the moon sometimes out during the day?
And the next question?
Ask anything — Wonderleaf writes and illustrates a picture book for it. That's the whole idea.
Ask your own questionThe next wonder, by email
A new question goes up every Sunday evening. We email it to you Monday morning, free to read that week.
One wonder a week, nothing else, ever. Unsubscribe in one click.