system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
If we observe a star X light years away, does that mean theres nothing inbetween here and there obstructing our view?
gpt
There can be stuff in between, it just can't be enough to completely block out the star. We will often see stars as being "reddened" because of the dust and gas in our line of sight that blocks out part of the light. Stars can also be partially eclipsed by a planet moving in front of them, but planets are much smaller than stars and only block out a small fraction of a stars' light.

But yeah, generally space is very very empty, and you usually have a clean line of sight to most objects. The biggest issue is the dust and gas within the Milky Way - when we look straight along the plane of the Milky Way disc, we're looking through the thickest part of the disc, and all that dust and gas adds up and blocks out much of our own galaxy.