When you look up at the stars are they really present at that place or are they somewhere else as the light from them reaches us in many light years?

Answer 1

They have move, but not necessarily by much. The stars that are visible to the naked eye are generally within a few hundred light years of Earth, and some are only a few light years away. So you see those stars as they were, at most, a few hundred years ago, which, to a star, is a very short time. During that time, the star's position relative to Earth will not have changed significantly.

For a star to be millions of miles away as some claim they are. it would have to be in an entirely different galaxy. If you were to observe the Andromeda Galaxy through a telescope, you would see it as it was 2.5 million years ago. Since then, the stars in it will have moved, but most will still exist as most stars last for billions of years, not just millions.

Answer 2

Yes the stars are really there. I mean stars in our Galaxy, the Milky Way.

You're perhaps thinking about the speed of light. However the life of a star is

normally far greater than the time it takes light to travel across our Galaxy.

Of course there will be some exceptions. For example a star we "see" now may actually have exploded as a supernova hundreds of years ago.

Then there are the stars in other galaxies. Some galaxies are very far away

and there will be very many stars there that will have "died" before their light

reaches us. Of course, you need a big telescope to see stars in other galaxies.