Why can light travel through space?

Light can travel in a vacuum. A vacuum is empty space. There are no molecules of air or anything else in a vacuum. Like all forms of electromagnetic waves, light can travel through empty space, as well as through matter.

Does light actually travel?

Yes, light does travel. It starts at one end and ends at the other. Light travels as electromagnetic waves. That essentially means that light doesn’t even need a medium to energize to travel (but it quite happily energize one if there is one).

Does light ever stop traveling?

Light is made up of particles called photons that travel like waves. Unless they interact with other particles (objects), there is nothing to stop them. If it is infinite, the light would travel forever.

Why can light travel through space but sound Cannot?

Light has an oscillation within itself, but it is not oscillation of something else, as sound is. Thus sound cannot pass through space, in which there is no matter, but light can, because light carries its own substance with it as it traverses.

Why light produced by the sun reaches Earth but sound produced by the sun does not?

Because of the composition of the Sun (basically, a big ball of gas), sound waves can propagate quite easily in it. Unlike light waves, sound waves cannot travel in vacuum: they need a medium in which they can travel. So since space is very close to empty, sound waves cannot propagate.

How does the light travel?

Light always takes the shortest path between a source and destination. A line drawn from the source to the destination, perpendicular to the wave-fronts, is called a ray. Far from the source, spherical wave fronts degenerate into a series of parallel lines moving in the direction of the ray.

How is light made or moved?

Light is made up of little packets of energy called photons. Most of these photons are produced when the atoms in an object heat up. the electrons inside the atoms and they gain extra energy. This extra energy is then released as a photon.

Can light sound travel through space?

Sound cannot travel through empty space; it is carried by vibrations in a material, or medium (like air, steel, water, wood, etc). So, the sound wave gets smaller and smaller until it disappears. In contrast, light waves can travel through a vacuum, and do not require a medium.

Is there really no sound in space?

No, you cannot hear any sounds in near-empty regions of space. Sound travels through the vibration of atoms and molecules in a medium (such as air or water). In space, where there is no air, sound has no way to travel.

What happens to light when it travels through empty space?

In empty space, the wave does not dissipate (grow smaller) no matter how far it travels, because the wave is not interacting with anything else. This is why light from distant stars can travel through space for billions of light-years and still reach us on earth.

Why didn’t the light come from stars?

It didn’t come from stars, because it predates the stars. It wasn’t emitted by atoms, because it predates the formation of neutral atoms in the Universe.

How does light travel through the universe?

Light just keeps going and going until it bumps into something. Then it can either be reflected or absorbed. Astronomers have detected some light that has been traveling for more that 12 billion years, close to the age of the universe. Light has some interesting properties. It comes in lumps called photons.

How can the light of stars billions of light years away?

How can the light of stars billions of light years away from the earth have reached us if the earth is only thousands of years old? A light-year is the maximum distance that light can travel in one year in the vacuum of space. Consequently, it takes billions of years for light to travel billions of light-years through space.