why do stars twinkle?

Question

simple answer plz im only in grade 8

Answer 1

Here's the easiest answer you're getting from a teacher in elementary school!!

Light comes from stars in straight lines. When the light gets to Earth, it passes through layers of air called our atmosphere. The air (atmosphere) makes the light bend. When you see stars twinkling at night, it's really light from the stars bending as it goes through the air.

Good luck!
JH
teacher

Answer 2

It's not reflection. The amount of light you get from a star depends on how close it is - like a light bulb sitting next to you or a mile away. Stars are very far away and we're only getting a little bit of the light they are sending - and since it's so little, it's easy to knock it off course, say by molecules in our atmosphere. So the more atmosphere you look through (like at the horizen vs. overhead), the more light gets scattered or apsorbed and the less you see - so the brightness varies, and it appears to twinkle.

Edit: The Sun is NOT on fire. There are no flames. It's a ball of plasma heated by nuclear fusion.

Answer 3

Ever noticed the shimmering of anything you see looking above a heat source (a fire, a heater, ever a hot road)? This is because air that is not uniformly heated will form eddies, little turbulences that distort the light path.
The atmosphere is full of that, even at night. But stars appear like point of light, because they are so far away, so any small heat eddy will distort its apparent position, and you have a star that seem to twinkle.
(And that annoys astronomers, actually).

Answer 4

A star is a massive, luminous ball of plasma. Stars group together to form galaxies, and they dominate the visible universe. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Other stars are visible in the night sky, when they are not outshone by the Sun. A star shines because nuclear fusion in its core releases energy which traverses the star's interior and then radiates into outer space.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star

Answer 5

I am in 8th to stars twinkle because they are constently having little explosions called solar flairs that give the appearance of twinkling.
need any more answers just email me at [e-mail]
A star is not on fire
a star does not twinkle because of distance
all those answers are wrong even the teacher ones who talk abut nuclear fusion they are correct
the atmosphere has nothing to do with it. There is no atmosphere on the moon but from the moon the stars still twinkle.

Answer 6

Due to atmospheric condistions on Earth. Heat variations in the atmosphere refract the light from the star.

Answer 7

The Earth's atmosphere distorts the light they produce. It is similar to looking at the sky from the bottom of a swimming pool.

Answer 8

They only appear to twinkle to us because of the light waves passing through our atmosphere defract off of gases.

Answer 9

because of the air in the atmosphere

as the light passes through hotter and colder zones in the atmosphere, the light is bent.

like when you see things looking wavy when you look right above a hot road in the summer time.

the correct term is "refraction". not reflection, retards.

Answer 10

A star shines because nuclear fusion in its core releases energy which traverses the star's interior and then radiates into outer space.