Kerfudamapa

Kerfudamapa t1_ix8fggy wrote

I believe It all comes down to the angle of light hitting it and being reflected to your eye, and the amount of light that is being reflected really.

In sci-fi, we'll see a spacecraft in detail because that's what the audience is expecting but, more than likely, in deep space with a vast amount of distance to the nearest star you probably wouldn't be seeing much.

However, the same goes for a moon-sized spaceship that is sitting in the earth's shadow in our own solar system. If there's little/no light hitting it that is reflected to your eye then it's effectively invisible to us.

The point being, while all objects do emit light (usually in the infrared; Google black body radiation) it becomes increasingly difficult to see reflected light from a small source point, onto a small object, that you are well distanced from. Maybe if you plan on venturing into deep space you should bring a floodlight or two?

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