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Question
What are scientists and astronomers talking about when they make reference to a "dark star", considering a star emits light?
There is no such thing as a dark star; I doubt that you have seen any scientists or astronomers use the term. The word is, as you correctly note, a contradiction, because a star by definition is a self-luminous object. However, this is one of those ideas that is convenient for pseudoscientists to use to rationalize why something they claim is out there is invisible to astronomers. How convenient for them to say it is really there but invisible, sort of like ghosts. (Dark Star is also the title of a 1974 sci-fi film).
David Morrison
NAI Senior Scientist
January 2, 2009
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