What makes a star "twinkle"?

Question

Last night I was playing around with a telescope with some friends, and we were wondering why some stars seem to flash colors, while others remain solid.

Answer 1

The twinkling of stars, technically known as stellar scintillation, is due to the very unromantic force known as atmospheric turbulence. Moving pockets of air in the Earth's atmosphere distort the light from the stars. These pockets of air act like lenses, refracting light in random directions and causing the stars to appear to "twinkle."

Stars on the horizon will appear to twinkle more than stars directly overhead. This is because the light has to pass through more of the Earth's atmosphere to reach your eye. The colors of a star are also affected by the refraction of the Earth's atmosphere. A star may appear to change colors rapidly due to atmospheric turbulence. Outside the Earth's atmosphere, the stars don't twinkle. That's why the Hubble Space Telescope is able to capture such clear and amazing photographs of the stars.

So why don't planets also "twinkle"? Well, besides the fact that "twinkle twinkle little planet" just isn't as catchy a song title, planets don't appear to twinkle because they are much nearer to Earth than stars. The planets appear much larger to us, so the "twinkling" effect of refracted light is not nearly as noticeable as it is with stars, which are so far away they appear to be only pinpoints of light. However, if the Earth's atmosphere is particularly turbulent, or you are using a powerful telescope, you may notice the planets doing a little twinkling of their own.

Answer 2

When the light from a star travels towards Earth, it travels from vacuum (a rarer medium) to air (a denser medium).So, light bends towards the normal at the point of refraction. Since the medium of refraction(the atmosphere) is not a static medium with stable phyical conditions, the star light flux entering the eye keeps on changing with time.
So, stars appear to twinkle.
Planets do not twinkle, as they are , when compared to stars an extended source of light.So, you can't really make out any fluctuations.
I reckon the "star" that did not twinkle was probably a planet.

Answer 3

To the best the human eye can see, stars are so far away they appear the same as would infinitesimal points of light. The Earth's atmosphere, however, is clumpy, so that different air pockets produce different images of a single point-like star. Because the atmosphere is always windy and changing, the number and position of images is always changing, with the result that stars appear to twinkle

Answer 4

The light from the star is affected by the atmosphere on earth which it must pass through before reaching the telescope.

Answer 5

Stars twinkle because the sun reflects on them, making it look bright
as you might know stars are actually suns but they are much further away from us than our own sun so they look small.
these suns are all different to each other, some might be blue or red and some may be yellow or white. so if you look at them through a telescope they are all different to each other

Answer 6

Stars don't really twinkle; the "twinkling" that we see is the destortion from the Earth's atmosphere. Some of the light is blocked due to these distortions, and it therefor gives the impression that it is twinkling.

Answer 7

The higher in the sky a star is, the less atmosphere it has to pass through and the more stable its image is apt to be. You will also sometimes see twinkling caused by a nearby heat plume.

Answer 8

Generally the twinkle comes from the earth's atmosphere, which likes to play with light.

Answer 9

Hi there...
The star doesnot twinkles....
Stars emits constant light but light takes time to travel huge distances for us to see it...
Our atmosphere containd dust particles which reflect n deflect the light....causing the star as twincling

have a look at the source...ur get good info...

Answer 10

As the starlight goes thru space it is sometimes influenced very very slightly by magnetic fields, and dust clouds and other energy fields- but these are always very very slight.

Then the starlight hits our atmosphere, and our atmosphere acts like a 100 mile thick prisom breaking up the light- what you really are seeing is the air turbulance in our atmosphere affecting the lightwaves from the stars