Please see my post #24.
As for sunlight, consider a picture of the sun taken from space. You don’t see any light rays. It’s not like those friendly, smiling sun pictures you see in cartoons.
To see those rays, the light must interact with particles. That is my understanding of the phenomenon.
As to where I am getting my information, I spent many years running chemistry and physics labs. But my specialty is inorganic chemistry, not optics. So I am certainly open to correction here.
I think you may be right. Space is dark except when visible light interacts with something.